A review by solly
The (Un)Popular Vote by Jasper Sanchez

inspiring lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I enjoyed this a bit more than I thought I would, to be honest. Reviews comped this to The Politician and I couldn't make it past the first episode of that show, but I think my taste in books vs. movies/TV shows is super different in some places and that's why. 

I'm a bit of a politics nerd, so it was great for me. I tend to enjoy non-American politics more, because American exceptionalism is a plague, so this annoyed me in places, but not more than politics usually annoy me. I'm a politics nerd but I don't *love* politics, I'm just very involved in my local and national politics as an activist, and all of my friends are, so it's something I can talk about for hours. So seeing teens deep into politics was really enjoyable to me, as I've been discussing politics with friends since middle school (my very political far-left best friend got me into it haha). 

It was still a bit unrealistic in places. Not so much because kids can't be this involved in politics but because EVERYONE was. Everyone was taking themselves so seriously and while I believe some kids are very politically oriented, a lot aren't. So this whole dramatic election thing demanded some suspension of disbelief in places but, hey, it's fiction and I was happy to give in. 

I really enjoyed the ace best friend and the aro best friend rep, they were both fully realised characters and there wasn't any aphobic stuff that I caught, and it made my aroace heart really happy. 
 The LI was sweet too, though I wish the romance subplot had been a little bit more engaging in places. 
 There's a few times throughout the book where I wanted people to be MORE angry at Mark instead of just accepting apologies straightaway or refusing his apologies. 

Binder safety also just... wasn't it in this. Mark wears his binder to work out at the gym, wears it in the water... it's not good, despite him mentioning binder safety earlier/taking his binder off after 8 hours of wearing it. I know a lot of trans teens don't follow safety guidelines because dysphoria is a bastard, but it wasn't even mentioned that Mark wasn't respecting said safety guidelines, so that was a meh aspect of the book to me. 

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. There's a lot of misgendering and deadnaming but I didn't mind, there has to have space for trans stories where this is central. It's understandable if some readers wanted to avoid it, though, so be warned.

 I enjoyed the questioning Mark had to go through to find his ground in politics, I enjoyed that one of the best friends was a self-assumed politician shark, I enjoyed some of the subverted tropes, and I enjoyed that this didn't glorify politics/politicians and that it had some critical lines about the whole thing. It was good! Probably not for everyone for several reasons, but it was good. 

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