Becoming Nicole: The Extraordinary Transformation of an Ordinary Family

Author(s): Amy Ellis Nutt

Non-Fiction | LBGTQ | Biography & Memoir

When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But it wasn't long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother, Wyatt. Jonas preferred sports and trucks and many of the things little boys were 'supposed' to like; but Wyatt liked princess dolls and dressing up and playing Little Mermaid. By the time the twins were toddlers, confusion over Wyatt's insistence that he was female began to tear the family apart. Becoming Nicole is the heart-wrenching story of a mother whose instincts told her that her child needed love and not disapproval; of a conservative, army-veteran father who overcame his deepest fears to embrace his new daughter; of a loving brother who never gave up supporting his twin sister; and of a town forced to confront its own prejudices. More than that, however, Becoming Nicole is the story of an extraordinary girl who fought for the right to be herself.


Product Information

Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Becoming Nicole is the sometimes heartbreaking, always inspiring true story of a transgender girl, and an ordinary American family's extraordinary journey.

If you aren't moved by Becoming Nicole, I'd suggest there's a lump of dark matter where your heart should be New York Times A transgender girl's coming-of-age saga, a civil rights time capsule, a tear-jerking legal drama and, perhaps most of all, an education about what can happen when a child doesn't turn out as his or her parents expected. Time Becoming Nicole is a miracle. It's the story of a family struggling with-and embracing-a transgender child. But more than that, it's about accepting one another, and ourselves, in all our messy, contradictory glory. -- Jennifer Finney Boylan Gripping... Timely and significant Kirkus

AMY ELLIS NUTT won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for her feature series 'The Wreck of the Lady Mary', about the 2009 sinking of a fishing boat off the New Jersey coast. She is a health and science writer at The Washington Post, the author of Shadows Bright as Glass, and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Teenage Brain. She was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton, and an instructor of journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Washington, D.C.

General Fields

  • : 9781782399698
  • : Atlantic Books
  • : Atlantic Books
  • : May 2016
  • : United Kingdom
  • : March 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Amy Ellis Nutt
  • : Paperback
  • : Main
  • : en
  • : 306.768092
  • : 304
  • : 1 x 8-pp colour plate section