I wish she'd said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can't hide from it, not even here.

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.

I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.

Nobody, she felt, understood her-not her mother, not her father, not her sister or brother, none of the girls or boys at school, nadie - except her man.

We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.

For some, excavating the past isn’t an adventure, it’s more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.

If Aphrodite chills at home in Cyprus for most of the year, then Fez must be the goddess’s playground