Beautiful Monster: A Becoming

Borrero’s incandescent debut memoir recounts the experiences that led him to come out as a transgender man, with particular focus on his coming-of-age in Colombia in the 1980s and ’90s, stint as an actor in the U.S., and tenure as a yoga teacher. Even as a child in Bogotá, Borrero shunned gender expectations, refusing to receive his first communion because he hated the starchy, feminine dress his parents insisted he wear. As Borrero entered adolescence, he began praying to wake up as a boy, though he had little context for his wishes. In the mid-1990s, Borrero left Colombia to attend acting school at the University of Utah, where he was quickly pigeonholed into “fiery Latina” roles, which nudged him closer to an awareness of his conflicted gender identity (“Something else was percolating—something I couldn’t name,” he writes). After moving to New York City, Borrero cast acting aside and stumbled on a yoga studio located above the Strand bookstore. Before long, he was organizing his life around the practice, and the resultant physical and spiritual awareness finally pushed him to accept himself as a trans man. Borrero is by turns funny and gut-wrenching, doggedly keeping the proceedings from tipping into melodrama even when the emotional terrain gets gnarly. Readers will be captivated by this always inspiring, sometimes shattering story of self-discovery. Agent: Liza Fleissig, Liza Royce Agency. (Oct.)