Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls

Hypnotherapist Thom (Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars) explores hope, forgiveness, and love in these heartrending prose poems. Growing up in Vancouver as a Chinese Canadian trans girl, Thom was no stranger to what she calls the “harsher side of human nature,” but faith in the power of human bonds “has always been my solace and my guide,” even when “my faith was tested.” Her determination to write her way out of a mid-pandemic period of personal loss gave rise to a series of love letters—to the dead, to the strength of her younger self, and even to those who’ve caused her harm. One missive celebrates the joy of being trans-femme, even amid a climate of fear and violence; another extends a cautious olive branch to “trans-exclusionary radical feminists,” with whom she shares the desire for a safer world. Interleaved are ritual suggestions for readers to drop stones into a river to release their burdens, or make a “list of five good things that you frequently do for other people” and do “them all, at least once, for yourself.” Thom’s unvarnished honesty and earnestness immediately draws readers in—“This book is my act of prayer in a collapsing world,” she writes. “I hope it can be yours too.” This fierce and tender volume leaves a mark. (Aug.)