Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Tre by Valérie Perrin

2 reviews

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • 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

4.0

 Three is a deeply- layered, slow burn of a novel. It centres on Nina, Adrien and Etienne who meet as ten year olds and form a deep and abiding friendship, albeit one that has its ebbs and flows, challenges and a major breaks. We see their childhood and teen years and then meet them again in their forties, when a car is pulled from a lake with a body inside. The characterisation is excellent, the many threads of the plot deftly handled as Perrin carefully and meticulously weaves them together in this beautifully written novel. The story takes some unexpected turns and covers some difficult terrain. I really enjoyed Perrin’s quiet, powerful and satisfying storytelling. 
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morebedsidebooks's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

3.0

 “There are no simple friends.” 

 

Inspired in part by another reflective novel Lie with Me, Valérie Perrin crafted Three a lengthy tome of three childhood friends over decades and the haunting disappearance of an 18-year-old girl they knew. Yet, told with an interesting narrator named Virginie. A journalist who seemingly knows everything about the three and begs the question of how. Another mystery that there is no simple way to write about. Keeping this as a reveal is a choice that is very open to critique. 

I think it’s better for readers to know there is a trans character and its Virginie/Adrien. The problems of such an authorial deceit aside, it also adds so much more comprehension to sections. Perhaps only some readers initially picking up on things is a staple of mystery. But when one mystery is the gender identity of a major character this kind of decision to obscure or mystify— it can go down a lot of ways.
  I can only speak for myself, but I don’t like this being treated as a spoiler.     

Further an interesting question in Three is about people’s stories. How they are turned into mass media and by who. Whether culled in the process of reporting, absorbed into entertainment by true crime, or transformed by literature. Three seems particularly aware of the media around us, too, even having its own sort of playlist with music becoming an indelible part heightening experience. Yet in general, this fiction book can at times feel too long. (Available translated by Hildegarde Serle the audiobook narrated by Elisabeth Lagelée is likewise slow.) It’s a work caught up in literary devices, excessive detail or bound in tidy conclusions. The latter life rarely offers. But perhaps sometimes as it’s put “Novels are for writing what one is incapable of doing in real life.” 
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