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markwillnevercry's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
- The constant use of the word transgender. At some point I actually had to look at whether or not the author is trans themselves, because it felt like such a weird usage of sanitised language.
- Trans representation. This book was published in 2021 and it feels like it was written for cis audience. The main premise is that Spencer wants to pass and keep passing. There are reasons that are given for this type of behaviour, like previous trauma, but when you write something it is important to ask yourself what you are trying to bring to the table and how you are trying to bring it.
At the end of the story, Spencer comes out in order to “stand up for those who cannot”, without any conversation about how previously that caused his trauma. For the book that kept focusing on the “ugly” sides of being trans, his coming out goes great and there are no issues, which feels like this part was written for some other book. I did not grow up trans, I came out when I felt like it would make sense and I never even tried to pass, so I guess it makes sense that this book made me feel extremely uncomfortable, but I am not reviewing this while thinking what would a passing person review it as. Our literature should stop portraying either dystopia or utopia, there should be more focus on what is real and how there is no single experience of being trans. - The romance? It was not good. I am a proud hater of romance books, but I will be honest, I was basically against the main couple actually being a couple. I saw them as friends, as buddies, as literally anything but a couple due to the lack of chemistry between them.
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Homophobia, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Mass/school shootings
mabellene's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Bullying and Outing
Minor: Ableism, Deadnaming, Death, Hate crime, and Racism
fanboyriot's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Bullying, Hate crime, Homophobia, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, and Outing
Moderate: Ableism, Panic attacks/disorders, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Deadnaming and Dysphoria
rockythefreak's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Transphobia, Mass/school shootings, and Outing
Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Abortion, Outing, and Dysphoria
Minor: Deadnaming, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, and Injury/Injury detail
emily_mh's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Graphic: Religious bigotry and Abortion
Moderate: Bullying, Homophobia, and Transphobia
Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Racism, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: menstruation, chronic pain, loss of a loved one (child)the_vegan_bookworm's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Mass/school shootings
a_libra_library's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Biphobia, Cursing, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Transphobia, Outing, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
rey_therese07's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Graphic: Transphobia and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Ableism and Racism
nobirdtennis's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Ableism
valereads's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I was really excited for this book so I’m sad to say it ended up being a disappointment.
I will start off with the positives. This book had a strong start. It was fast-paced and I liked the writing style. I really liked Spencer’s character at first and it’s always good to see some well-written trans characters in books.
That said I had some significant problems with this book. Firstly the portrayal of Spencer’s autistic brother. I wouldn’t normally refer to him like that but that’s all he was to the narrative: Spencer’s autistic brother. He felt like a prop, used first as something for Spencer to feel guilty about (a plot point that never really got resolved) and then to make Spencer look like a good person for loving him. He was also a flat character; the only things I could tell you about him are that he’s autistic, he likes animals and he has an ipad he takes everywhere. If he had more character development and relevance in the narrative he could have been good representation but as an autistic reader I’d rather he wasn’t included than be portrayed like this. It wouldn’t make any difference to the overall story if he was left out entirely.
My next issue is something of a sensitive subject: religious bigotry, abuse and victim-blaming. If you haven’t grown up surrounded by religious bigotry and with abusive and controlling parents you may not understand the issue I have here. As someone with personal experience with these things I was very uncomfortable with the way Justice’s family was portrayed and Spencer’s reaction to them. Justice comes from a conservative family who are part of a cult-like right-wing Church. His father is emotionally abusive and controlling. Spencer breaks up with Justice for not standing up to his abusers for their homophobic bigotry and is depicted as in the right.
Thousands of queer people are subjected to conversion therapy, abuse and even exorcisms by abusive family members for coming out. Justice is a 15/16 year old kid. Expecting him to stand up to his family and Church is victim-blaming and the narrative shows little empathy to the situation Justice, and many very real queer young people, find themselves in.
In addition to these things there were some amateur writing mistakes in this book that became more and more grating to me as it went on. I may have been able to ignore these issues if it weren’t for the other issues I had with the book.
I’m sorry to say that I found this book to be a disappointment. I won’t tell anybody not to read it if they’re still interested but it gets a no from me.
Graphic: Ableism, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Ableism, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Ableism, Biphobia, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, and Religious bigotry
Victim blaming