Get OFF My Unicorn: Life Lessons from a Kinky, Polyamorous, Transsexual Lesbian Whose Kids Still Call Her “Dad” by Katie Anne Holton is the kind of book that arrives laughing, sits down uninvited on your couch, eats your snacks, and somehow leaves you wiser than when it showed up. It is bold, funny, intimate, occasionally outrageous, and unexpectedly tender, a collection that feels less like a lecture and more like a long, honest conversation with the smartest friend you know, the one who refuses to pretend life is neat, quiet, or easily categorized.
Katie Anne Holton is best known to millions of readers as a singular voice on Quora, where she spent over a decade answering questions that ranged from hilariously naive to painfully sincere. With more than seventy-two million views, her writing resonated because it did something rare, it treated human curiosity with respect while never taking human nonsense too seriously. She answered questions people were afraid to ask out loud, questions about sex, love, identity, parenting, and shame, and she did it with wit sharp enough to cut through hypocrisy and warmth deep enough to make even uncomfortable truths feel survivable.
This book gathers her most viral answers into a cohesive and gloriously cheeky whole. Reading it feels like scrolling Quora at three in the morning, except every answer is a gem, polished with humor and compassion. Katie writes about sex in a way that is refreshingly grounded, stripping away both prudish fear and performative bravado. Her sex advice is not about technique as much as it is about honesty, consent, and paying attention to the human being in front of you. She writes about parenting with the voice of someone who has actually done it, not as an abstract moral exercise but as a daily practice filled with chaos, cookies, guilt, pride, and laughter. Her kids still call her “Dad,” and instead of presenting this as a problem to be solved, she treats it as a reality to be understood, lived with, and sometimes laughed about.
There is something quietly radical about the way Katie writes. She does not present herself as a saint, a victim, or a novelty. She presents herself as a whole person, flawed, confident, reflective, horny, tired, loving, and very much alive. The humor is never cruelty in disguise. Even when she takes on what she openly calls humanity’s dumbest questions, there is an underlying affection for human awkwardness. She understands that confusion is often the first step toward growth, and she meets it with sarcasm that punches up, never down.
Readers familiar with Katie Anne Holton from earlier years will notice how naturally this book connects to the woman who appeared in the 2014 interview for The Heroines of My Life. In that conversation, she was already candid, witty, and thoughtful, speaking openly about coming out at forty-five, about modeling for Visible Bodies: Transgender Narratives Retold, about loving her children fiercely while knowing her transition would complicate their lives. She talked then about storytelling as a political act, about the need for trans people to be seen not as issues but as full human beings who just happen to be trans. Get OFF My Unicorn feels like the long, confident continuation of that interview, written by someone who has spent years refining her voice and trusting it completely.
The Katie of this book is still deeply aware of privilege, of economic realities, of how access shapes who gets to transition safely and visibly. She does not romanticize struggle, but she also does not deny joy. In both the interview and the book, she returns again and again to the idea that happiness and confidence are contagious, and that living visibly can be both an act of self-love and a gift to others who are still afraid. Her polyamorous life is not presented as a manifesto, but as one honest example of how love can look when people communicate clearly and refuse to treat affection as a scarce resource.Each chapter, though not formally labeled as such, feels like a small meditation on human absurdity. Dating disasters sit next to moments of profound self recognition. Identity awakenings are followed by practical advice about surviving other people’s opinions. Katie has a rare ability to move seamlessly between laughter and gravity, often within the same paragraph. One moment you are laughing at a perfectly timed punchline, the next you are quietly reconsidering how you treat people who confuse you or make you uncomfortable.
This is not a book that asks readers to agree with everything Katie believes or practices. It asks something more interesting, that they listen, reflect, and maybe soften a little. It offers permission to laugh at yourself without shame, to ask better questions, and to accept that growth often begins with admitting you do not know what you are doing. Wisdom, in Katie Anne Holton’s hands, does not arrive dressed in solemnity. It shows up wrapped in glitter, profanity, and truth, and somehow that makes it easier to hear.
Get OFF My Unicorn is smart, funny, unapologetically real, and deeply human. It captures the voice of a woman who has lived enough to know that life is messy, love is plural, identity is layered, and humor is sometimes the most compassionate response available. For readers who discovered Katie through Quora, it feels like a greatest hits album with new depth. For those meeting her for the first time, it is an invitation into a worldview that insists on empathy without demanding perfection. Enlightenment, this book suggests, does not always come quietly. Sometimes it laughs loudly, tells you to get off its unicorn, and then hands you a mirror with a wink.
Available via Amazon
Photo via Heroines of My Life
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