A review by everesto
Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas

emotional funny reflective slow-paced
  • 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

4.25

This book was hard to put down, it was written in a way that made me need to know what happened to the characters. Here are some miscellaneous thoughts I have:
- I love the way the author utilized the different perspectives of Fay, Nell, the F&N unit, and the invert society. I really enjoyed how the chapters that were the F&N unit and the invert society were in first person and used the 'we' pronoun whereas the Fay and Nell chapters were in third person and were reflective on the events in high school.
- knowing how close Fay and Nell were in highschool and that they did not talk at all after highschool really made me curious about what could have happened to separate them.
- The faunfic was weird (don't write fanfic about real people, ESPECIALLY don't write smut. It's just weird)
and though it ended up being and important plot point
it still made me feel weird.
-
the ending was pretty unsatisfying to me. I don't know what could have been different but I don't think the story was concluded really. I think that makes sense given the way their relationship ended but still.

-
I think Fay's plot point of being a gay trans man was NOT resolved in the slightest, though I think that Fay wouldn't end up resolving it at all and would stay living as a woman. Despite this, I wish that something went different with it due to the miscommunication about gay stuff between Fay and Nell being a big point of tension in their friendship (at least for Nell).

-I want to know more about Theo. 

Overall I really enjoyed the book and thought that the characters and their relationships were written really well!
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