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I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted
I'm Looking Through You Growing Up Haunted
Author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
From the bestselling author of ...  more »
 comes another buoyant, unforgettable memoir—I’m Looking Through You is about growing up in a haunted house...and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts.

For Jennifer Boylan, creaking stairs, fleeting images in the mirror, and the remote whisper of human voices were everyday events in the Pennsylvania house in which she grew up in the 1970s. But these weren’t the only specters beneath the roof of the mansion known as the “Coffin House.” Jenny herself—born James—lived in a haunted body, and both her mysterious, diffident father and her wild, unpredictable sister would soon become ghosts to Jenny as well.

I’m Looking Through You is an engagingly candid investigation of what it means to be “haunted.” Looking back on the spirits who invaded her family home, Boylan launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters. Boylan also examines the ways we find connections between the people we once were and the people we become. With wit and eloquence, Boylan shows us how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find peace—with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and withe uncanny boundaries, real and imagined, between men and women.
ISBN-13: 9780767921749
ISBN-10: 0767921747
Publication Date: 1/15/2008
Pages: 288
Rating:
  • Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
 13

3.3 stars, based on 13 ratings
Publisher: Broadway
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 1
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted on + 15 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
This book was a good read, but not totally about growing up in a haunted house. This was more a book on Jennifer's growing up years as a transgendered person with a few sightings of ghosts in his/her house. I would still recommend this book, but not if you are looking for a book totally about ghosts.
reviewed I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted on + 347 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I'd been wondering how Boylan could fit her trans-sexual background, along with the story of growing up in a haunted house, under a single premise, but it actually works well. Her being "banished" up to the haunted attic as a teen when the family moves in, rather than being encouraged to take the available bedroom on the second floor where her folks and sister slept, gave the book a rather sad start, but she got through that okay, without being traumatized.
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reviewed I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted on + 14 more book reviews
I love the humor in Boylan's work - but it also has a serious side, helping people understand what it means to be transgender. As a bonus, you will feel really great about your own childhood, in comparison to growing up the wrong gendered body.

Readers of this book may appreciate the 4 volume "Jonah Black" series - Diary of a teenage stud - written by the same author under a pseudonym.

And Jennifer Finney Boylan, if you are reading this, can you please put some clips of your piano playing on the web? I am trying to wrap my head around what you wrote.


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