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A review by elenajohansen
The Cartographer by Tamsen Parker
3.0
If I were rating this as an emotional reaction to the love story and kink alone, five stars all the way. Rey gets his HEA (finally) at the end of a series I deeply love (if you ignore the novella about Hunter, which I do, because it's just a bad idea from start to finish). The four other books are all brilliant.
This does a lot of things right, representation-wise, and needs to be applauded for that, as well. The two leads are both queer MoC, and Allie specifically is an big, outwardly masculine black man who spends the story coming to terms with his submissive side. It's so blatantly against typecasting (where big black men are always scary!) that I loved it.
But there were representation issues that, while they didn't touch on my experiences directly, did make me uncomfortable. Ableism, in that Rey's disability is treated as a plot twist--though I picked up on the foreshadowing and figured it out early, the reveal is shallow both emotionally and in terms of handling disability with respect. I get that Rey's parents didn't know how to handle it, and that left him with some issues, but those issues aren't explored much before they evaporate as an obstacle to Rey's happiness.
And I'm honestly not sure how to feel about Julian, the trans character. Am I glad a trans man was included as a real possibility for a love interest without Allie treating him any differently than a cis man? Yes. Do I like the way Rey spoke about Julian internally? No--because Rey did make a distinction, and one I didn't feel like it was his to make, when he speculated that Allie might like to be with someone he could have a family with, without intervention. It seemed...callus? Cavalier? It's not entirely clear to me if Julian's trans-ness was public knowledge or not, and while Rey outing him to us as the readers is merely narrative, I was really uncomfortable with his tone, because whatever did or didn't come of Allie's dalliance with Julian while he was separated from Rey, Rey didn't have any business making decisions based on Julian's reproductive status. Which he would know, of course, because Rey knows everything about everyone, so that doesn't actually give me any clue about whether or not Julian is "out" as trans or not.
I tried to look at that as a failing of Rey's arrogance, and it fits--I mean, he is trying to set up his lover with other man as a break-up gift, basically--but it still irks me beyond that. I'm not sure I can explain it any better, but this felt like it fell short of good representation.
This does a lot of things right, representation-wise, and needs to be applauded for that, as well. The two leads are both queer MoC, and Allie specifically is an big, outwardly masculine black man who spends the story coming to terms with his submissive side. It's so blatantly against typecasting (where big black men are always scary!) that I loved it.
But there were representation issues that, while they didn't touch on my experiences directly, did make me uncomfortable. Ableism, in that Rey's disability is treated as a plot twist--though I picked up on the foreshadowing and figured it out early, the reveal is shallow both emotionally and in terms of handling disability with respect. I get that Rey's parents didn't know how to handle it, and that left him with some issues, but those issues aren't explored much before they evaporate as an obstacle to Rey's happiness.
And I'm honestly not sure how to feel about Julian, the trans character. Am I glad a trans man was included as a real possibility for a love interest without Allie treating him any differently than a cis man? Yes. Do I like the way Rey spoke about Julian internally? No--because Rey did make a distinction, and one I didn't feel like it was his to make, when he speculated that Allie might like to be with someone he could have a family with, without intervention. It seemed...callus? Cavalier? It's not entirely clear to me if Julian's trans-ness was public knowledge or not, and while Rey outing him to us as the readers is merely narrative, I was really uncomfortable with his tone, because whatever did or didn't come of Allie's dalliance with Julian while he was separated from Rey, Rey didn't have any business making decisions based on Julian's reproductive status. Which he would know, of course, because Rey knows everything about everyone, so that doesn't actually give me any clue about whether or not Julian is "out" as trans or not.
I tried to look at that as a failing of Rey's arrogance, and it fits--I mean, he is trying to set up his lover with other man as a break-up gift, basically--but it still irks me beyond that. I'm not sure I can explain it any better, but this felt like it fell short of good representation.