Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction, and Transformation

Actor Dorfman debuts with a beguiling if inchoate memoir of youthful confusion about relationships, boundaries, and gender. Dorfman was born into a large, loving, and well-off Georgia family in 1992, and her coming-out—first as a gay teen, then as a trans woman—was met with warmth. But that didn’t shield her from the trauma of having sex with older men as a teenager, nor from the impact of drinking and doing drugs simply because she didn’t know “what else to do.” Outwardly, Dorfman did plenty else: she studied theater, starred in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, and married a man who proved to be more of a friend than a true love. All the while, she felt profoundly unmoored, and her path toward sobriety—which began with a 21-year-old Dorfman googling “celebrity rehab fancy” and ended with a spiritual awakening—provides the otherwise diffuse narrative with an organizing principle. Unfortunately, despite Dorfman’s self-awareness, considerable charm, and strong prose, the book’s diaristic, nonlinear structure doesn’t generate much momentum. There’s wisdom here in places, but it fails to take flight. Agent: Andy McNichol, AMStudio. (May)