One of the most unusual books I’ve reviewed is Both Sides Now: One Man’s Journel through Womanhood by Dhillon Khosla, published by Tarcher/Penguin. For twenty-eight years, Dhillon Khosla lived as a woman. Then he made the decision to embark on a journey that would match his physical body with the man inside.

From the press release: Both Sides Now: One Man’s Journel through Womanhood is the courageous and heart-wrenching story of one man’s decision to risk it all to be true to himself. Dhillon Khosla was born into the body of a beautiful woman and endured multiple, complex, even life-threatening surgeries which transformed him physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Although Dhillon knew early on that his true identity was male, he spent almost twenty years repressing this knowledge trying fiercely to embrace the female form into which he developed.

Trapped beneath this female disguise, Dhillon lived his life from the outside looking in until he read an article about men who were born into female bodies and had gone through surgeries to reclaim their male identity. For the first time, Dhillon felt hope and a call to action.

Both Sides Now offers a rare glimpse into what it is like to live as both a woman and now, a man, and offers extraordinary insight and perspective into the sexes, our social mores and how experiencing a life in each gender leads to a greater understanding and realization of the other.

Both Sides Now is an inspirational story about what it means to be true to oneself despite seemingly insurmountable societal and social constraints.