It is an incongruous fact of life that deciding to turn left instead of right can determine which path a person ends up taking in life. This is true when comparing two memoirs, The Woman Warrior, written by Maxine Hong Kingston, and She's Not There, written by Jennifer Finney Boylan. Although both novels fall into the memoir genre, both are one of a kind. Kingston writes not only about his transition from Chinese society and integration into the drastically different American society, but also about his families. Instead, Boylan writes about her transgender experience and her transition from male to female. However, a comparison of the two memoirs reveals that the novels are attempting to do the same thing: recount experiences of searching for identity and, through this searching, the reconnection of the family ties that helped develop and shape those identities. As children, people are curious about the world and try to discover what they like and dislike as individuals. During this period, however, because children are young and are supervised by adults, especially family members, parents can heavily influence their children's identity development. In The Woman Warrior, Kingston illustrates this very trait when it comes to her mother. From an early age, "talk stories" were commonly told to help influence Kingston, and one of those talk stories was that of Fa Mu Lan. "I had forgotten this song that was once mine, given to me by my mother, who perhaps did not know her power to remember it. She said I would grow up as a wife and slave, but she taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa Mu Lan I should grow up as a warrior woman" (Kingston 20). In some of the opening scenes of Kingston's novel, her mother, B...... middle of paper ......milies, still led a life in which they sought and found an identity with which they felt completely at home ease. . In Kingston's case, it may not have been what her mother originally imagined, but Brave Orchid is at least proud of her daughter, even if she's too proud to mention it out loud. Boylan gains acceptance from her wife, her children, and most importantly, her mother who helped raise her and is the reason for many of her characteristics despite the gender change. Ultimately, both memoirists experienced drastically different circumstances, but both experienced similar events regarding their identities and families. Works Cited Boylan, Jennifer F. She's Not There. New York: Broadway Books, 2003. Print.Kingston, Maxine H. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Vintage International, 1976. Print.