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SPECIAL PROMOTION - Buy the book and Cadance will plant a tree on your behalf. All the details are inside the book when you buy a copy. You can even watch (online) the tree grow as the years pass! This brilliant promotion was organised and financed by Cadance herself.
The unforgettable memoir that redefines ‘she’ll be right’.
What’s it like to grow up in an Aussie family that has a man of every flavour? A bank robber, an infamous sports umpire, several different breeds of drug addict (collect the whole set!), a roster of crafty swindlers, an attempted murderer and the local town drunk. And what if you had a secret so ghastly that you feared it made you more disgraceful than all of your roguish ancestors combined?
Seven years ago, Ben was a millennial with a death wish. He was loveless, overweight, crashing in his parents’ rumpus room and blinking his life away in a haze of marijuana vape. Then one day Ben decided to change everything – starting with the Ben bit. Becoming Cadance was more than a gender transition: it was a transition in every way, fear to acceptance, from self-loathing to love, anger to kindness. She was determined to experience the all of it.
Written with dazzling creativity and exuberance, The All of It is a wild coming-of-gender memoir like no other. Tender, tragic, hilarious and life-affirming, it will leave you understanding a little more about trans people, rural Australia, family, millennials and the beautiful contradictions of our kaleidoscopic world.
Author: Cadance Bell
Paperback Published 5 July 2022 448 pages
Read and Recommended by Hendri:
“If you’re alive, you can do anything. If you’re reading this, you’re not dead”. These hopeful sentences came across Cadance Bell’s mind when she chose not to die. Becoming Cadance is not merely a gender transition. It is also about choosing to live on to the fullest. Warm, life-affirming, and funny, this memoir chronicles her past life in Mudgee, relationship with her family, gender dysphoria, and experience of being wrongly accused of a crime and incarcerated. Seven years ago, Ben saw himself as a failure. Overweight, loveless, addicted to marijuana, and in debt, he couldn’t live away from his family in the rural Mudgee. Many times he endured violent actions from his brother who almost killed him. Just before his teens, he started to realise that being a man was not something he should be proud of. Instead, he felt burdened and a hostage in his own body. He began to adore female bodies, stole bras, and hid female clothes in the wardrobe. It remained a secret until he eventually met Moira who became his housemate when he studied in Albury and lived apart from his family. Although Moira seemed to support Ben, he didn’t fully anticipate what he would get from her—a series of sexual assaults, followed with a wrong accusation that put Ben in the prison. Through these seismic ups and downs, Cadance eventually discovered who she is, found acceptance from her parents, and met Amanda, her trans lover. The writing is gloriously accessible, fun, and intense in several parts, yet she successfully interweaves various emotions together in a satisfying way, leaving readers with hope or happy tears."