Janet Mock's honest and sometimes searing journey is a rare and important look into la vida liminal, one that she manages to negotiate remarkably well, with grace, humor, and fierce grit. Mock doesn't only redefine what realness means to her, but challenges us to rethink our own perceptions of gender and sexuality, feminism and sisterhood, making this book a transcendent piece of American literature.

This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.

I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.

When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.

There are things in our blood that are just naturally passed down to us, whether we want to recognize them or not.

Support and encouragement are found in the most unlikely places.

Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?