I was excited to read a book about masculinity from the perspective of a trans guy as in general trans people examine gender expectations and gendered behaviour more than cis people do. There is indeed some good reflection in here but I found the execution to be lacking. It's pretty repetitive with more concrete advice only mentioned in the final chapter, and having everything addressed to "we" and "us" felt really reductive. The author spends a lot of time talking about navigating romantic relationships, in particular those with women, and managing marriage and having children, all of which did not speak to me as a single gay trans man in his 20s. He does make an effort to be inclusive regarding other kinds of men but it does feel like an afterthought considering the difference in time dedicated. I also did not know that the author is a youth pastor and that the book would be heavily tied to religion. Maybe that's on me but also I do feel like that should have been made more obvious. While I appreciated some of the introspection provided by the author about finding his own way to masculinity and the impact of gendered socialisation, this book unfortunately left me unimpressed overall.

Disclaimer: I'm not a man, either cis or trans. I requested this ARC because I had the impression that its discussion of masculinity was intended for a general audience interested in questions of gender and gender presentation. But it's really a self-help book for men (cis and trans, queer and straight and everything in between). I can only review it as myself (queer, cis woman), so one question I can answer is "What -- and how much -- did I learn about masculinity and men's relationship to it?"

The answer is "Not nothing, though not nearly as much as I might have hoped." I was struck by Shannon Kearns's (unfortunately brief) discussion of the contradiction between notions of how men "should" be big and powerful and take up a lot of space, and the ways in which received ideas of the masculine serve to shrink men by limiting their emotional range and expressiveness and making intimacy much more difficult to achieve than it typically is for women. And Kearns is certain that many or most men struggle with the perception that they're never enough and can't get it right, whatever "it" is in any given context. --Though I think many or most people of whatever gender struggle, at least sometimes, with those same feelings?

Kearns's autobiographical passages, in which he describes how he formed his own understanding of masculinity as he first acknowledged that he was trans and then embarked on transition, include plenty of sharp insights, as do his readings of trans men's memoirs and of some pop-psych/pop-sociology books about men and masculinity. I am grateful never to have happened across some of those books myself, because yikes.

I also appreciated Kearns's step-by-baby-step suggestions for how men might enlarge their sense of what's possible within any definition of masculinity -- for instance, learning to build intimacy with male friends, beginning with asking them how they felt, say, about some health news or a problem at work.

But who's going to read this book? Or rather, I'd guess that the men most in need of it, men in thrall to a rigidly individualistic and aggressive ideal, are the least likely to pick it up. So Kearns is preaching to the choir. Of course, I don't know what a book on the subject would have to do to reach those men.

Speaking of the choir, Kearns grew up in a fundamentalist Christian community and is now a priest of the "Old Catholic" sect, which is confusing as h-- uh, which is confusing, because the Old Catholics seem to be theologically and politically right-wing, as Kearns clearly isn't. "No One Taught Me How to Be a Man" discusses his faith but doesn't shove it down the reader's throat -- despite my grave allergy to religion, I wasn't too put off. Still, something to bear in mind for anyone who's considering the book but whose experiences of religious institutions are even more poisonous than mine were.

Like (almost) all self-help books, "No One Taught Me How to Be a Man" suffers from repetitiveness, from the making of obvious points, and from self-help-speak. If Kearns makes a suggestion or a point once, he makes it half a dozen times. So much baggy prose! And so many "spaces"! So much "showing up"! With tight editing, with some sharpening of the prose -- at, say, two thirds of its present length -- this would have gotten four stars from me, and I'm a bit sorry not to be able to deliver them.

Thanks to Broadleaf Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

I think the premise of this book is a good one. The author talks about how he learned healthy masculinity and strives to teach that path to others. He acknowledges there is no singular way to be a man, that it looks different for all of us.

Unfortunately, the execution of his idea leaves a bit to be desired. A lot of this book is repetitive, teaching the same lesson a different way over and over again. While the book is over 200 pages if I remember right, it could probably be half that and still accomplish what Kearns set out to do. Furthermore, while his solutions make sense, his way of reaching them feels a lot like "just stop worrying." That's a lot easier to say than do, and could make the journey to being a better man harder than suggested.

Finally, while I again think the topic of this book is important, I do not think it will reach its target audience. I picked this book up as a trans man myself, and nearly everything discussed in it is something I've discussed with my boyfriend. Those looking for healthy masculinity likely already are aware of most of what's discussed in this book, while those who need it will probably never pick it up.

Overall, it's a good book, but it's not well executed.