Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders

I decided to read Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders because I had just finished Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders, which I loved. I kind of regret reading Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders, especially so soon after reading She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders.
Boylan revisits and further elaborates on her life story, but I found it confusing because she decided to use people’s real names, and events seem to unfold differently. Apparently I am less confused by the complications of being transgender and more confused by aliases and how people really met. After awhile I had to stop comparing the two books like an investigator and try to enjoy Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders on its own merits.
Unfortunately Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders is two books in one. Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders is a memoir, but it is also a meditation on what it means to be a father, a mother and how gender norms affect the mother and child and father and child dynamic. Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders intersperses the memoir with Boylan’s transcribed conversations/interviews with notable friends from her life about how gender impacts the parent child relationship.
Because She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders is such an amazing book, Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders’ memoir side is not as strong as its transcribed side. My cynical side acknowledges that Boylan is genuinely interested in this topic and probably examines these issues ordinarily with her notable friends, but also has to pay the mortgage so Boylan just decided to make a little moolah by getting their permission to publish it. Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders is as close as Boylan will get to making an Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups or George Clooney’s Ocean’s Eleven. Make a little money by hanging out with your friends minus someone else paying the bill by going on vacation.