Realize that Ellen already wrote a book review on the book, The Sky Turned Green & The Grass Turned Blue:  Diane's Story by Diana Kelly, about her personal journey as the significant other to a M2F transsexual.

Feel very strongly that not only significant others, but also transgender people themselves and therapists should read this book.

The most important lesson I took away from this book was that serious personality disorders can afflict transgender people, as they can anyone else. Don't want to revisit the old days when horror/crime movies/books would feature a bad guy dressing up as a woman as part of their fetish.  That is not what I am talking about.

The reality was that two friends who knew the author's, Diane's lover, "J,"  before Diane got involved with J, but she did not listen, because they had their own agenda.  It was sad that this information did not come from somebody that Diane trusted.  Realize the importance of judging a person's character for ourselves, but had Diane been warned by people she really trusted, she probably would have looked a little harder and longer.

This book has so many lessons to teach, I had to read it several times to absorb it all.

J's being transgender and involved in SM/BD is very much secondary to her personality disorder.  However, when members of J's SM/BD club did not respect their own rules and their boundaries repeatedly, I feel that Diane and J should have quit the club, and when J refused to do so at Diane's request, this showed that J did not respect Diane.

The most important lesson in this book was J's pathological lying, and when she was caught in lies and constant excuses, being transgender was one of them.  J used being transgender as her "whipping boy" as the perennial excuse of telling one line after another.

The final straw was J cheating on Diane, with her covering her infidelity with one lie after another.

There are some boundaries that there should be zero tolerance.  Lying and cheating are two of them.  Perhaps, may I add, broken promises.  One promise after another was broken by J.

If a person is a bad person, transitioning will not make them a good person.  A person's character will not change by transitioning.  

What can be learned by reading this book?  Be aware of your loneliness and neediness.  Everyone is lonely and/or needy on occasion.  Take extra care of yourself when you are lonely or needy.  Diane was a divorced woman with several children, raising them alone, and was hoping for marriage to the knight in shining armor.  This is fully understandable.  Diane was working long hours supporting her family, so she dated and made most of her friends from only one source, at her work.

Be self-aware when you are a walking open wound, as we all are times.  When we are lonely and needy, people with serious personality disorders will be attracted to us.  Do not confuse career success (J was a good looking and apparently successful doctor, although I think she was running away from problems at her previous workplace) with being a well-rounded individual.

Asking the reader to be aware the culture has changed greatly since Diane was involved with J, and that their affair lasted 10 years, where J showed her true colors over time.  People with serious personality disorders can hide their true colors over a long period of time.  When a lover looks too good to be true, chances that alone is a red flag.  Also, when Diane was involved with J, we were just learning about serious personality disorders.

This book is a heads up for all of us, as this could happen to any of us!