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Aug 19, 2017Ennis R. Tulloch rated this title 0.5 out of 5 stars
I found this book incredibly upsetting. When a book leads me to great emotion, I would rather it be the result of powerful storytelling. This book not only lacked in a powerful voice or subject matter, but was utterly revolting in its depiction of a transgender teen. This teen was incredibly antagonistic from the get-go, and had no problem demeaning and preying on girls around him, without a shred of any redeeming quality. He was not simply depressed, but completely depraved. He is built entirely out of mangled stereotypes of teenagers, with an occasional dash of sexist and predatory flair that is endemic to an angst-driven male character written by an unskilled author. Even if a character is irritated by their body, must they refer to every single other character with expletives? Essentially, he acts as a sympathy dumpster for people that have no idea what an actual trans teen experiences in day-to-day life. I found myself rooting for his enemies, who cared about the well-being of themselves and their friends more than ambiguously-rooted rage. The author makes it painfully obvious that she has no clue what it is like to be assigned a gender you don't identify with by stating that the main character was "born in the wrong body", when real transgender people are far more likely to feel that the people around them are simply treating them as something they are not. The issues that transgender people face are rarely caused by their own body, and usually caused by their cisgender peers and superiors imposing strict roles upon them. Cisgender people are uncomfortable with this stinging truth, and like to pass on the blame on biology, like this willfully ignorant author has. Not only that, it conflates transition with sexual perversion. The misconception that being transgender gives one an obsession with their genitalia and incompatibility with sexual partners does little to separate real trans and nonbinary people from sexual fetishists in the minds of cisgender audiences, and this harmful representation is given service by this novel over and over again. I want people to know this is not representative of transgender people. It is not an acceptable way to view them. Cisgender people should embrace writing about transgender characters, but they should not write books ABOUT being transgender. What I find most unfortunate is that the author's child is. It makes me wonder how a parent could be so blind to their child's experience through a journey such as transition while patting themselves on the back for writing such a mediocre-at-best chunk of fiction. I should have known to read the back cover, on which T Cooper's review had referred to the main character as a "tranny Holden Caulfield". The fact this was listed like a badge of honor on the book should be enough to tell you that this book is an absolute travesty that should be expunged from memory as soon as possible.