Perhaps the most stunning thing about Van Meter’s book is how ordinary it is, at least in terms of its subject. The pains Van Meter writes about are not the kinds of traumas that are often at the center of memoir. They are somewhat mundane, which means they are often relatable. As Van Meter describes how his grandmother would watch him setting the table as he wore a blue dress he had discovered in a closet upstairs, I remember similar situations with my grandmother. As he details how he would sneak looks at his father’s shirtless friend, capturing the exact pattern of the hair on this man’s chest in his mind forever, I remember doing the same with men my father knew. Many readers fortunate enough not to have lived lives defined by trauma and devastation will recognize struggles to blend in with other boys (or girls) or to decide if now is the time to say to someone, “I’m gay,” struggles that our adult selves may be able to look back upon and even smile about but that our younger selves experienced with hardened, stone-cold stomachs and sweats of fear.