Review Summaries

• Its restrained style and delicate treatment of transition and marriage are widely appreciated. Readers respond well to the clear emotional contour and the refusal to over-explain the historical material.

Reviews

• まいった！

  いやあ。素晴らしい。実話と聞いてもっと驚いた。 世界初の性転換手術を受けた男の物語。そしてその妻が甲斐甲斐しくも病院を駆け回る。まさに究極の夫婦愛！

• bellissimo

  Ho acquistato questo libro subito dopo aver visto lo struggente film con Eddie Redmayne. Il libro è un po' diverso dal film e ho preferito leggerlo in lingua originale in quanto studentessa di lingue straniere. Struggente come il film, si riescono a percepire tutti i turbamenti e le lotte interne dei protagonisti. Consigliato!!

• A book of acceptance

  The Danish Girl has been acclaimed since it was made into a film starring Eddie Redmayne last year. I managed to grab a copy for the bargain price of 99p on a kindle daily deal and I'm really glad I chose to read it. Now I'll be honest, I have very little knowledge of the ins and outs of LGBTIQ rights, choices, lifestyles etc. I have friends who fit into those categories if you'd like to call them that, but that's exactly why I don't make it my business to know too much. I think that by categorising we can sometimes stop looking at people as ordinary folk. We start labelling them and putting them into bundles and categories and ticking boxes and that's where it all starts falling apart. So while I wholeheartedly support the LGBTIQ community what I'm trying to say is that this is the first time I have read something in depth about a transgender person. This story is first of all beautifully written. There is something in the way that it is written prettily and delicately that personifies the story itself as Lili. The subject is dealt with in a manner which is accepting and honest, that looks at the feelings of all the people who are involved in Lili's transformation not just herself but Einar's wife, the couple's friends and all the people who have loved Lili before and after she became a woman. It taught me a lot about transgender feelings about identifying as someone else and how terrifying this can be for that person who is still unsure who they are. It also taught me about hermaphroditism and what that actually means. I think we've all had a view in our heads of what it is and this book shows me that this view was in fact incorrect. It was an interesting perspective from the 1930s when acceptance was not like it is now (even though it could still be better) and the authors view of the minutiae of day to day life and the oddity of Einar appearing one day and waking up as Lili the next kept it a page turner despite the story being a slow build up. I can't say I enjoyed The Danish Girl as much as i developed as a person FROM this book. That my understanding and own personal acceptance were broadened as I rooted for Lili and yet rooted for Greta as well in a world which must have been terribly confusing for her to understand. The Danish Girl is all about acceptance and learning that no matter the challenges you can fight for your right to be who you feel you truly are inside. I'll be giving the film a watch soon see if it lives up!! [...]

• A quirky story

  I found this to be an interesting story of relationships I can't imagine. The setting is well described too.

• A most unusual but still more poignant love story, immersed within several other love stories full of ecstasy, loss, aspiration,

  I'll have to see the movie now to see how true it manages to be to this so very rich novel's character's internal thoughts and inner journeys, sometimes separately, and sometimes together. Poignant barely manages to describe the depth of emotions this story, loosely based upon the life and related experiences of the first transgender surgical patient, her wife, and their family and friends during the period between WWI and the Great Depression. While I knew the bones of this historic surgery, that left enormous gaps in the lives which drove the patient to risk so much pain and death to have her body be matched to her authentic inner self... and the depth of her relationship with a lover and wife able to love, support, and release her to follow that oh so perilous and painful path toward dreams of a complete transition. We cannot KNOW all the inner lives of the cast during this time, but this story feels very true to a handful of quite dramatic times and lives. We can learn from and share from this haunting and beautiful telling of the story the depths of sorrow and the heights of ambition that fill the lives of those with gender identity disorder or the intersexed among us. It succeeds brilliantly in that regard, beyond being simply a spectacular novel. I seldom review novels, perhaps 2% of those that I read unless I am very significantly moved by it and feel that I have learned and grown as a human being by the experience. No novel that I have read in the last few decades has moved me as greatly as has The Danish Girl. I will be strongly recommending it to all my friends.

• Five Stars

  Very good and well written, I loved it

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