Rating: 
Summary: why these mistakes?
Review: I think Ebershoff's work's well done but for one very important point: why did he turn Gerda in an American woman? She was Danish and a very well known Danish painter and illustrator of the 20's and 30's who spent her life in Paris and, when she married her second Italian husband, she used to live in Morocco. Then, she died in Danemark. She never ever went in the States. Why pretending she was American?
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant prose, but there's no such thing as perfection
Review: I'll be the first to admit that I enjoyed reading The Danish Girl; the lush prose and interesting chain of events kept me turning the pages. However, it seems that this book is getting huge accolades everywhere due to the well-connectedness of its author. Every review deems the book flawless and appears less than objective. Meanwhile, I feel that the story left a few very large gaps in narrative: Einar's transition into Lili felt far too rushed and unexplained, Greta's emotions were not fully accounted for, and the struggles of a burgeoning transsexual were barely addressed beyond the physical aspects. There's no doubt that Ebershoff can write, and write well at that. But the book left me with a more than slight feeling of dissatisfaction. As a love story, perhaps it works. But I want more!
Rating: 
Summary: A careful study of transgender issues
Review: In his effort to be believable, to try to approximate the true story on which the novel is based, I feel the author leans sometimes too far into pedantics. But as an example of the growing body of work on transgender issues, The Danish Girl is much more than a worthy example.
Rating: 
Summary: And A Beautiful Little Dog, Too
Review: Many reviewers have remarked on the wonderful and moving characters of Greta and Einar/Lili. But there's another character in their household-- their little dog Edvard IV who we first meet in 1925, on page 4. Six years later, Edvard IV's body is "arthritic and unreliable." When Lili suggests that it is time to put Edvard down, "Greta had nearly cried in protest." And so did I. Because through 258 pages Edvard IV pads around, laps water, yips and yaps the way dogs do, and I grew attached without thinking about it. "The Danish Girl" is, in a way, like an intricate painting. In the center stand Greta and Einar/Lili, but you can gaze into any corner and see something fully developed and beautiful. I was deeply gratified when Greta sailed with Edvard IV into her new life. This is a touching novel.
Rating:
Summary: a trustworthy account
Review: Mr. Ebershoff creates a perfectly credible view of early 20th-century Denmark while exploring in equal depth the subject of gender identity and what it means--or doesn't mean--to own a personal history. His portrayal of Einer/Lili is rendered with great respect. In lesser hands, the story of the first recorded male-to-female transition could have been prurient and awkward. But Ebershoff took his time to get it right--making sure that that the time and place were thoroughly integrated into the reflections and actions of the husband and wife who rose to a such an enormous challenge in their marriage. While I wonder whether so many of the couple's associates would have been quite so broad-minded toward Lili as Mr. Ebershoff portrayed them, this was afterall Denmark. At least in its fictional guise, Danish society was far in advance of our attitudes toward transgendered people today. In his wonderful Introduction (placed at book's end) the author recognizes transgendered people for what they are, perhaps the bravest among us.
Rating:
Summary: Do yourself a favor: Read this book!
Review: Okay, I'll admit it: I picked up this novel because of its subject matter. I was interested to learn about the first person to undergo gender-reassignment surgery (1931! ), but more so, I was curious to see how the author would handle this amazing story. I was--simply put--blown away. The Danish Girl is not a novelization of an amazing historical anecdote--it is a beautifully written, senstively-handled, and deeply-engaging novel that it absolutely one of the best I have read in recent years. Here is a book that truly makes the reader stop and question one of our most rigidly held fundaments of identity, gender. And the book does so by convincingly rendering its characters of Greta and Einar and Lili. What a romantic and moving book! Not only in its landscapes--Denmark's bogs, fog-dimmed streets in 1930s Paris, a river bank in pre-WWII Dresden all beautifully captured with an eye as painterly as Einar's--but in its moving story of the love between Greta and Einar and, noteably, Greta and Lili. I thought the book a poignant and sophisticated portrait of a marriage, with all its complexity and complications, that changes as Greta and her husband both do. The Danish Girl I would recommend--and am recommending--to all readers I know.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful telling the story of true love and self discover
Review: The book is about Einar Wegener, a painter in 1920s Europe, who is married to a Californian lady who knows no bounds to her love for her husband. With her love and support he is able to transform to become the woman that lay dormant in his soul until discovered by chance. This book is about love and discovery. It is full of beautiful prose. Read it if you are interested in transsexuality - it will fill you with hope. Read it even if you have no interest in transsexuality. It is first and foremost a story of love, compassion, human strength and weekness - about the very stuff that humans are made of. Well done Mr Eberhoff. I hope that your future books will be as good.
Rating:
Summary: A surprising but intensely romantic view of marriage & love.
Review: The Danish Girl is compulsively readable - primarily because the three characters Einar/Lili and Greta are so finely and fully realized. That a story which on the surface should be so unlikely - i.e., that a woman would help her husband find the "girl within" - becomes so inevitable on the page is, I believe, the author's greatest achievement. It's wonderful that Greta (the wife) herself does not fully understand why she's helping Einar/Lili but that her motivations - conscious and subconscious - are revealed slowly throughout the course of the book both to herself and to the reader. It's also fascinating how different Greta and Einar's relationship is from Greta and Lili's, yet how complex and real and loving these relationships are. I only wish that the book hadn't ended with us knowing so little about what happened between Greta and Lili after they've moved forward in their lives. Nonetheless, this is an incredibly promising literary debut and I look forward to reading more by this author.
Rating:
Summary: An Early Masterpiece
Review: The feeling I had reading this novel was similar to that while reading Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" - the surprise of reading a first novel of beautifully etched prose in the service of a wonderful story. There were similar lyrical touches on every page and never a sense of a forced phrase or overwriting found in more publicized young writers. But the aspect I most appreciated was how fully imagined each scene was, how cinematic the writing. What an auspicious beginning! What a talent to follow!
Rating:
Summary: Warm and Beautiful...
Review: This is a brilliantly written book about the first male to female transsexual; Lili Wegener. The author takes great care in revealing Lili's character layer by layer. His presentation of the 1930's Europe is quite vivid and lingers in the mind. Mr Ebershoff's compassionate story could have easily been written as a forgettable, lurid tale...but in his skilled hands he turns out a near masterpiece.
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