Review: Too Hurt to Stay

Casey Watson and her husband, Mike, serve as foster parents for seriously troubled children. This is the story of one of those children, Spencer, an eight-year-old who supposedly put himself into foster care. It becomes clear that Spencer has a host of problems, including habitual stealing, running away, and harming animals and peers. Casey is convinced that the story about Spencer's family is deeper than what social services knows. She hopes to uncover it.

It is absolutely essential to note that the Watsons are doing a very difficult job, and they are clearly passionate about the kids they parents. Their affection for Spencer is evident. That said, I do feel like some parts of this book must have been changed or embellished. The ending, in particular, was absolutely implausible to me. Without giving anything away, let me just say that, there's no way. That said, the book reads easily and moves quickly.

Casey Watson, Too Hurt to Stay (Harper Element, 2012) ISBN: 0007436629 

Review: Stuck in the Middle with You

As a woman who transitioned from being a man, Boylan has experience as a father, a mother, and a person in the middle of changing from one sex to the other and one gender to the other. This is not a book about the sex change, it is a book about parenting written by one of the few people who can claim to have experience as both father and mother in the literal sense. Boylan finds that the experience of being father and mother is fundamentally not all that different. Her worries about transition disrupting her children's lives have come to naught. It's clear that the Boylans have raised two thoughtful and compassionate children.

This was an engaging book, and it made me think about what life must be like when for no reason of one's own choosing every action and family choice is considered political. Boylan's writing is thoughtful and very readable. This book deals with a variety of family and gender issues. It also includes a series of interviews with other writers who have had different experiences of parenting and gender. I generally found these to be far less interesting than the main text, and I preferred reading Boylan's own story.

Jennifer Finney Boylan, Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders (Crown, 2013) ISBN: 0767921763