mhairicorinne's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Outing, Miscarriage, and Transphobia
Moderate: Abortion
Minor: Suicide and Suicide attempt
moonpeach's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: Abortion and Miscarriage
squishmallow161'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? No
5.0
Graphic: Self harm, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Transphobia
Moderate: Dysphoria, Gaslighting, and Outing
Minor: Miscarriage, Mental illness, and Suicide
maeverose's review against another edition
It just wasn’t really what I was expecting. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting. The main characters are very messy people who make questionable decisions, which on one hand is nice to see because it allows trans people to be messy and human just like everyone else without the expectation of perfect representation, but on the other hand, I don’t really care to read about Reese’s questionable sex life for a huge chunk of the book (well, the beginning at least). I feel like all I know about her is she’s trans, has terrible taste in men and little self worth. I also (as a childfree person) really didn’t like how the characters were going about the whole parenting thing. I stopped somewhere in the middle of chapter two, but the way Katrina was like ‘I’m only having the baby if I have a co parent’ made me feel like she didn’t actually want a baby and should probably just get the abortion. As well as Ames using the pregnancy seemingly just as an excuse to kind of get back together with Reese in a way. It bothers me so much seeing people become parents for stupid reasons, and the characters in this book were all way too messy to care for a child, and two of them didn’t even seem like they wanted to.
I have no objective issues with the book, it’s just not for me.
Graphic: Misogyny, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Sexual content, and Infidelity
Moderate: Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Gore, and Animal death
Minor: Abortion, Infertility, Antisemitism, and Racism
The gore is just animal gore, at least as far as I readanthsoprano's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Hate crime, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Miscarriage and Outing
lanid's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Outing, Transphobia, Infidelity, and Sexual content
Moderate: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Body shaming, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Misogyny, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy
mmikenaite's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Hate crime, Dysphoria, Outing, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Abortion
Moderate: Body shaming, Miscarriage, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, and Transphobia
na_no's review
4.0
Graphic: Transphobia and Misogyny
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Grief, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, and Death
ang_mendoza's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Transphobia, Abortion, and Homophobia
Moderate: Violence, Pregnancy, Suicide, Deadnaming, Miscarriage, and Outing
aliciae08's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
- the exploration of womanhood, motherhood, gender expression and queerness;
- The imperfectness of the characters so that the reader knew that no one person’s identity is monolithic. It is entirely one’s own;
- The idea that we can create our own family
- The exploration of why the characters are the way that they are (especially Ames).
- Others have mentioned the clumsiness of race within this, and how the inclusion of Katrina being the one major character of color might be a metaphor for how the white trans experience isn’t the only one. It doesn’t work for me fir so many reasons, but the first one being that whenever she brings race up it feels like someone who hasn’t actually experienced being a minority, and because any attempts at relating with Katrina by Reese/Ames are shut down.
- Some of the writing, as beautiful as it is, was over the top for me. I was sometimes waiting to get to the end of a chapter and I hate feeling like that.
- Reese said things about womanhood and the need to feel delicate (particularly when she was with Stanley and the Cowboy) that I wholeheartedly couldn’t relate to, but have to admit that at some point in my own life defined my own perception of what it means to be woman and the need for men to view me as someone worthy of being taken care of/defended etc. I think it’s easy for people (especially those looking for an excuse to hate this book) to use it as a way to accuse people like Reese, at worse, of cosplaying womanhood, when that’s not what’s happening.
- Ames’, before their transition to Amy, misogyny and further internalized misogyny was hard to read, mostly because I grieved for that character.
Graphic: Outing, Misogyny, Transphobia, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Miscarriage, Suicide, and Pregnancy