A review by obviousthings
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Okay, say it with me, folks: having LGBT characters in your book doesn’t necessarily make for good representation. Frankly, as a bisexual person I was pretty pissed off about how the lone bi character* was portrayed: promiscuous, sex-obsessed, dangerous. There was an explicit contrast made between this bi character and the one aroace character: risky, darkly sexy, and capable of hurting Bea, vs. safe, sweet, innocent, and incapable of causing harm because of the absence of attraction. Ugh. When that contrast was made, I felt it was in poor taste, but understandable considering it was coming from Bea’s perspective. (Straight people, am I right?) However, later in the book, it’s revealed that
the bi character has been cheating on Bea the whole time. What’s more, he’s opposed to the idea of a monogamous relationship, and apparently doesn’t see anything wrong with going behind her back to sleep with other people. (For those not in the know, bisexuals are often offensively stereotyped as being slutty, disloyal, only interested in sex, and fundamentally incapable of monogamy)
. I was furious. In a book clearly aiming to be inclusive, I wasn’t expecting to run across nasty stereotypes like this.

Also, I would encourage anyone saying this book has “good non-binary representation” to do more research on what "non-binary" actually means. The character in question is a gender non-conforming child who hasn’t said anything about his gender identity. It’s explicit in the text that it’s unclear how he’ll come to identify. All we know is he likes fashion and makeup and tutus, and he hasn’t expressed interest in changing his name or pronouns. That’s it. Being non-binary is about gender identity, not clothes, and it’s kind of ridiculous to spin this as “representation” when the character doesn’t have a defined identity yet. He could just as easily turn out to be a trans girl, or a cis boy who likes skirts. I did like how this character was written, but all we know is that he's gender non-conforming.

*Small edit: Technically there are two bi characters. However, one of them only appears in one scene, and has so little relevance to the story I forgot she existed.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings