Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place (A Transgender Memoir) by Jackson Bird

I received this book from NetGalley, all opinions are my own!

I am so excited to buy my finished copy of this book if preordering if your jam than 100% go and do that right about now. And look at that cover. It is a great cover.

This is the kind of memoir that makes me remember why my fantasy, science fiction, and YA farce loving self also sort of thinks non-fiction might be the best genre. When a true story, on any scale, is written well with a cohesive narrative, it completely kicks ass.

Sorted is a memoir following Jackson Birds life through the lens of gender. The narrative is so tight, funny, and informative without feeling unapproachable. We get a glimpse into many aspects of what it is like growing up trans, a Texan, a Harry Potter nerd, and the struggles of early adulthood.

Quick acknowledgment, I have been following Bird's online presence for quite some time. I started as an occasional Will it Waffle viewer and was probably aware of his youtube channel because I was deep into the Harry Potter side of the internet as soon as I was on the internet. I am a pretty regular viewer of his youtube content and am eagerly awaiting more of his podcast. I have been known to lightly trash talk some internet people turned authors. Despite that, I am delighted to have to eat crow on my assertion that I would no longer read internet peoples books (I am also dying to read Akilah Hughes' Obviously). I loved this book and genuinely think it is terrific.

I found this book incredibly relatable and assume that a wide array of people will agree with me here. I figured out towards the end of the book that his home town is about 20-30 minutes from where I lived for a few years as a small child. I related so hardcore to the annoyance of being perceived as a person much younger than you are. This book would have been worth it to read if only for learning that I am not the only person over 18 to have been carded for a PG-13 movie, he handled this with much more grace than I did. I also tend to love musings on early career building as a 20 something figuring out what to do with life.

The narrative of this book has small sections of more educational content on the trans or queer community that are clearly delineated and work really well with the narrative. I am not anywhere near an expert on gender, but I believe that the educational component will work well for people who have given gender no additional thought while still giving nods to people with an academic and/or personal focus. Something that I particularly loved was the pretty long list of further reading and watching at the end of the book. I am quite excited to dive into other books written by and about trans people.

What more could I ask for out of a memoir? Informative, funny, it made me cry once (a Harry Potter reason but it still counts), and I was so interested in how the story would progress. I think that people with all levels of familiarity with Bird will find this book completely accessible. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves narrative nonfiction, has an interest in learning more about trans experiences, or who was also a Harry Potter kid.

I gave this book 5 stars on goodreads and have a review up on my tumblr!