PositiveNPRIn the crowded genre of memoir about mothering, Krys Malcolm Belc\'s debut, The Natural Mother of the Child, asks: What do we do with someone who is parenting the child they gave birth to, but is not a mother at all? Where do transgender and non-binary parents fit, especially in a world that is determined to force them into a box labeled \'mother?\' ... [The Natural Mother of the Child] is the necessary and long overdue transmasculine account of carrying and birthing a child ... The book is not linear in structure, and skews literary and lyrical, told as a collection of fragmented essays. Belc seamlessly weaves in primary source documents with historical references ... The book switches between first and second person, which can sometimes be confusing for the reader. Belc writes from the trans perspective and it is clear that he is unconcerned with overexplaining his experience to a cisgender audience. His experience is far from universal, but nearly everyone can relate to the transformative experience of falling in love — with a person, with a child — and the ways that love can shape our identities.
Megan Rapinoe
MixedNPRIn many ways, Megan Rapinoe seems like the perfect athlete-memoirist for the moment ... It is the hyperfocus on this goal that takes away from some of the storytelling in the book. Through 200-plus pages, we never really learn exactly who Megan Rapinoe is. There is a stark lack of scene detail in One Life, which can lead it\'s readers to feel that Rapinoe spends the length of the book keeping them at arm\'s length. Romantic relationships, aside from the relationship with her fiance Sue Bird, are blips in the book. While it\'s understandable that Rapinoe may have wanted to respect the privacy of past partnerships by not sharing too many intimate details, the relationships feel like afterthoughts that don\'t actually serve to show us anything about Rapinoe as a narrator ... One thing the relationships do show us is Rapinoe\'s queerness. This openness is one of book\'s biggest strengths ... By weaving her queer identity throughout the book as she does, she also shows readers how it\'s about so much more than just who she dates—being gay is a core part of her identity and impacts every aspect of her life and worldview ... The heart of One Life, however, and what might have made the more interesting book, is when it tells the story of the USWNT\'s fight for equal pay. At its very core, this is — or perhaps, should have been — a book about labor organizing, about what happens when a group of people recognize their strength and the collective power they hold. Rapinoe discusses the impact that organizing with her teammates had on the power balance of the team, and I wish we had gotten to see more of it ... unlikely to convert new fans. In trying so hard to center the book around consciousness raising, Rapinoe loses much of the personal storytelling that so naturally lends itself to doing just that. She is clear with the reader that the reason so many people are willing to listen to her is because she is small and cute and white — recognizing the privilege she has that makes her a less threatening messenger to some white Americans. Her clear-eyed commitment to justice is admirable. But there are others we need to hear from right now, in this moment, where Black organizers across the country helped stop a second-term for Donald Trump.
