“Whether I grow my hair or cut it short, wear makeup every day or none at all, it would be an expression of the specific woman I am at that point in time.” —The New York Times

“Because the memoirist’s entire job is to expose inconvenient, difficult, tortured truths about themselves—otherwise one would just be left with a simple narrative in which the memoirist emerges as a character of virtue, and what does the reader get from that?” —The Paris Review

During a protest at Harvard, Josh Oppenheimer’s kiss shook me into the awareness that I was not quite a man. —Vulture / New York

"I came to understand that what I wanted was to be seen as my complete self — my gender, my race, my history — without being judged because of it." —Fairest excerpt at BuzzFeed News

Recounting her coming-of-age as a transgender Filipino-American person with albinism, Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs. Rather than flaying her identities one by one, she examines the links between them to illustrate that it is here, in the messy overlap, that a person is made. —Rawiya Kameir, The New York Times

“By painting her life in such exquisite detail, Talusan breathes new life into the well-worn body of the transgender life story, showing the reader deep wells of complexity where, in a less truthful or less talented writer’s hands, oversimplification and cliché might reign.” —Kai Cheng Thom, The Boston Globe

“it was more important for me to know what possibilities are out there for me as a woman than to stay in a relationship in which I would never know what those possibilities are.” —Weekend Edition on NPR

An essay about why I asked for my face not to appear on the cover of Fairest, for Guernica.

“Talusan is one of the most stellar essayists writing today, and one of the very best at examining the many different meanings of transition.”—Michelle Hart, O: The Oprah Magazine

“In this ‘journey across gender,’ Talusan communicates the captivating story of what it means to be true to one’s self.” —Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post

“This nuance, this careful attention to looking and attempting to understand this journey not just from her own perspective, but also from those affected by it, gives a welcome maturity, depth and resonance to Talusan's memoir.” —National Public Radio

“Even for avid readers of memoirs, Talusan’s (journalist and founding executive editor of them., Condé Nast’s LGBTQ digital platform) debut will stand out from the crowd, not only because of the author’s unique experiences, but also because she presents them with a rare, frank vulnerability. “ —Sarah Schroeder, Library Journal