I liked this book a lot, which is so phenomenally inadequate as a response. But I did--I like its humor and its bravery and its willingness to sit in discomfort and say shit In Front of the Cis. This is a book with very little, if any, discretion, which is an achievement in and of itself. I also--I really liked Reese, and loved Ames. They both kind of suck in a lot of ways, but like. So what.

Two desires/points of criticism:
1. I wish Katrina had been given more interiority, though, to be fair, I do not think I can separate my desire for that as a reader, pure and simple, from the implicit TERF criticism that I can hear in the back of my mind, of this book's treatment of Katrina. (I want to be clear: the kind of TERF-y criticism I can imagine and suspect exists readily in certain unpleasant corners is, at best, an exceedingly ungenerous reading of this novel).

2. I do wish that trans people who break the rules, people who move through the world in a more actively nonbinary way--in the novel's vocabulary, the Babses of the world, were more present in this novel. Partially for Ames' sake--I kind of think that like. If she could internalize the reality of transfem butches, she might be able to exist as herself all the time. Maybe. ( )

My opinion is divided against itself because on the one hand this is a really thought provoking novel about gender and the experience of being trans, and on the other hand I couldn’t believe the major plot line for even a New York minute and so I didn’t really care how the plot developed, which made for some reluctance to return to the book. 5 stars for characterization, 1 star for plot.

I appreciated learning things such as “flagrantly gay brands such as Delta Airlines and Hyundai” (who knew?), or more seriously, this arresting description of a trans character experiencing sex as their birth gender prior to transitioning:

It took her a while to understand the cyclical loneliness of disappearing in dissociation during sex. That people have sex for a shared joy that keeps an existential loneliness at bay, so when she disappeared inside of herself, her more experienced partners sensed that absence and her disappearance hurt them. Since she dreaded hurting those she most wanted to connect with, she grew to dread and avoid sex with specifically those most-liked people. And of course, clearly dreading having to have sex with a person only hurt that person more and drove them away—concluding in a final angst in which the loneliness that had made her want to connect with someone in the first place returned upon her tenfold with every attempt to have sex.

Sometimes the authorial attempt to teach readers something made it seem more like I was reading a long form essay, which was fine, though it interrupted the narrative momentum. Sometimes it was highly unnecessary: yes, anyone reading this novel surely knows about the anti-trans bathroom bills, and is highly likely to be opposed to such laws already. Other times it was with a tinge of humor:

Thalia was a former drag queen turned transsexual, one of the earliest converts in the Great Drag Enlightenment, when a significant quorum of Brooklyn’s queens came out as trans, began to inject estrogen, and renounced their gay past, the consequences of which miffed them into misandry, as the desperately cute twinks who used to sleep with them no longer would.

And then there’s the main plot. I cannot, cannot, imagine a pregnant woman behaving like Katrina does. Being willing to “co-mom” when her lover reveals to her that, surprise, he used to be a trans woman and would like his trans ex-girlfriend to be the baby’s mother too? To the extent that she’s willing to send her infant away to this previously unknown other woman’s home for half the time? If it’s a failure of imagination on my part, then so be it, but, I can’t.

The most sense the novel made on this point was Reese’s first reaction: “Yes, go ask this other woman, Katrina, to split her unborn child with a transsexual. I fully expect that she will murder you for the suggestion...” Yes, that would have made more sense. The second most sense the novel made on this point was when Ames recognized “he had always been scared of Reese’s men”, such as the one who assaulted him and broke his nose. So why would you invite Reese’s expected future violent relationship interests into your child’s life?

The plot’s a big failure for me, which is a shame because the two main characters of Reese and Amy/Ames are well drawn. If only they’d been the center of a different novel. The writing, as can be expected of a debut novel, is uneven, but often quite good.

( )

3.5 stars. Still processing everything honestly. ( )

Read this one for my book club. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but I think it will spark some good discussions and I can't wait to talk about it with others in the club tonight. It did give me a new perspective on people who transition and then detransition. I wonder for people who detransition, like Ames, how many of them relate to Ames or detransition for the same reasons? It's sad that Ames had to still struggle with being himself/herself and living authentically and I wish things could have been different.

This is another story that's very much character-driven, so if character-driven books don't work for you, then this might not work. The story is split and alternates between a past and present timeline with the pregnancy/conception being the dividing line. Past timeline goes back to "years before conception" and present timeline occurs "weeks after conception." Stories with multiple timelines are tricky to handle and for some readers it's a no-starter.

I typically don't mind multiple timelines in some stories--depending on how it's handled--but with this story, I didn't really care about or want to read the chapters from the past timeline. I was way more invested in the present one. While I know a lot of things in the past timeline has shaped who these characters are which is why they were included and I get that, but I couldn't help feeling like a lot of the past scenes just felt like long paragraphs/pages of info dumps. I wish there were a better way to weave in the backstory without having to spend chapters in the past and this might have been fine if the chapters were short, but these are not short chapters at all, they're pretty long--average about 30 pages per chapter (though, I tend to read more YA than adult books, so maybe this is the norm page count for adult books, not sure).

The story also has an ambiguous/open ending, which is something I'm typically not a fan of. For those who like ambiguous/open endings, this may work for you.

Overall, this book is not bad, but I think it may connect more with the target audience it's meant for (trans/non-binary people).



Content Warnings: domestic violence/abuse, toxic relationships, substance use/alcohol, homophobia & transphobia, outing & dead-naming of a trans character, infidelity, divorce, abortion, miscarriage, attempted suicide, anxiety/depression ( )

This book was a bit of a miserable read and it did not seem like it would ever end. Before I was halfway through, I thought about making it a DNF, but I wanted to try and persevere instead. Then, another 5 or 10% later, I decided to check some reviews to see if any of my feelings about this were shared by others, and they were. Maybe this book just isn't for me, but I didn't find myself the least bit affected or captivated by the stories being told. Give it a try if you want, but I found this book to be a big disappointment after hearing a lot of hype. ( )