Sex Changes, Christine Benvenuto
Sex Changes, Christine Benvenuto
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Sex Changes
A Memoir of Marriage, Gender, and Moving On

Author: Christine Benvenuto

Narrator: Renée Raudman

Unabridged: 9 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/13/2012


Synopsis

What do you do when the other woman is your husband?Christine Benvenuto had been married for more than twenty years—with three young children—when her husband turned to her one night in bed and said, "I'm thinking constantly about my gender." Unhappy in his body, he wanted to become a woman.Part memoir, part voyeur's look into a marriage, Sex Changes is a journey through the end of a marriage and out the other side. We see a mother, desperate to save her family and shelter her children, discover a well of strength and resilience she never knew she had. We learn what to tell the neighbors when your husband starts wearing heels with his shirts and ties. We see a woman open herself up to a group of friends who travel with her through her darkest times, offering light, levity, and the opportunity to learn how to give as well as receive the love and support of true friendship. As she loses her husband to skirts and hormones, life makes Chris a better woman.Sex Changes is the story of what one woman discovered about herself in the midst of the conflagration of her family. Fiercely funny, self-lacerating, and not entirely politically correct, this book is a journey of love and anguish told with hilarity, heartbreak, and a lot of soul searching. It is about the mysteries in every marriage, the secrets we choose to keep, and the freedom that the truth can bring.

About Christine Benvenuto

Christine Benvenuto is the author of Shiksa, as well as fiction, essays, and reviews that have appeared in many publications, including the Village Voice, the San Francisco ChronicleTikkun, and Moment. She lives in western Massachusetts with her children.

About Renée Raudman

Renée Raudman is an actor and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. She has performed on film, television, radio, and on stage and can also be heard in several video games and hundreds of television and radio voice-overs.


Reviews

Goodreads review by B on December 06, 2012

The book is honest and true. Having your life torn away from you is hard as hell. I recommend this book with an open heart. I would like to note that the writers ex husband has launched a campaign to trash this book. How dare a woman tell her own story? The ex left a very spiteful review of the book......more

Goodreads review by Kelly on April 21, 2013

Sex Changes is not the story of Tracey, a transgendered man who eventually decides to live as his 'true self' but instead is the story of the family he leaves behind. This memoir, written by his wife Christine, chronicles not only Tracey's decision but the impact it had on his wife of twenty years a......more

Goodreads review by Stella on December 23, 2013

Do you think that a woman, who happens to be trapped in a man's body, is the only person with a voice? The only person with rights? The only person who should be supported in all ways? Think again. Especially when a wife and children are part of the picture. Christine Benvenuto writes about the loss......more

Goodreads review by Renee on July 06, 2013

A good read. An insightful look into how one family is destroyed by the husband's desire to become a woman.......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on January 04, 2013

This is one woman's story of a section of her life during which her husband of 20 years decided to live as a woman. It also includes her ensuing affair with another man. What struck me most about Christine Benvenuto's experience were two things she repeatedly emphasized: the complete character change......more


Quotes

“Christine Benvenuto pulls us into the eddies of heartbreak, confusion, anger, and epiphany that swirl in the wake of her shattered marriage. Benvenuto, like the best of memoirists, has that clear, true voice that transforms her story into my story—the details are different, but not the emotions. And as she makes her way through uncharted waters, discovering unseen facets of herself, I, too, make discoveries about myself. This is the power of storytelling at its best.”
Sally Ryder Brady, New York Times bestselling author of A Box of Darkness: The Story of a Marriage

“The brave, often funny account of how a woman came to terms with her husbands decision to become female…A refreshingly gutsy narrative that offers a compelling view of sexual maturity and a sexual coming-of-age at midlife.” Kirkus Reviews

“Christine Benvenuto’s Sex Changes is a long overdue book: the story of her experience with her husband’s gender transition is complex and questioning, and always honest. It suggests how deeply transformative recovering from the loss of a marriage can be.”
Helen Boyd, author of She’s Not the Man I Married