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pencilspeaker's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Bullying, and Transphobia
Moderate: Deadnaming
Minor: Suicide
dododenise's review against another edition
emotional
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I didn’t like how some things were handled and most of the characters were just very meh.
Seeing Dean find and discover himself was pretty neat. But I couldn’t care about anything else in the story.
Seeing Dean find and discover himself was pretty neat. But I couldn’t care about anything else in the story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Deadnaming, Outing, Transphobia, Dysphoria, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Biphobia
Minor: Suicide
moonyreadsbystarlight's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Homophobia, and Bullying
Moderate: Deadnaming
Minor: Suicide
maple_dove's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
This book really made me think about my own situation with my parents and coming out.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Bullying, Lesbophobia, and Homophobia
Moderate: Sexual content, Suicide, and Deadnaming
Misgendering (graphic), Harassment (graphic)bookmarked642's review
emotional
inspiring
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
I want to begin this review by pointing out that I, personally, am in no place to really comment on the accuracy of many of the themes in this book. I'm not transgender or gay or queer and so I can never fully understand anyone in any position similar to that of Dean in this book.
The main character of this book is 17-year-old Dean, seen by most as a female. But Dean knows he's not 'Deanna', and when he's cast as a non-traditional Romeo in a school production, he gets to experience being male properly for the first time. He doesn't want to go back to living a life of pretend; but how will he tell his girlfriend that he's not a lesbian, he's a guy? Not to mention the huge ordeal of coming out to his parents...
This book follows Dean through a real rollercoaster of emotions and experiences that many of us may find hard to even comprehend. It's a story of love and loss, of growth, of self-acceptance, of strength and empowerment. Dean is bullied, his once-perfect plans are tossed in the air, and everything seems so uncertain. Yet he navigates his way through this tremendously difficult time and builds some valuable relationships along the way. Most importantly, though, he begins to understand the importance of accepting himself.
Overall, the book was a really enjoyable read. There was a lot of emotion, and I really felt connected to Dean as a character despite not necessarily relating to him/his circumstances. I can't say whether this is a particularly good representation of LGBTQ+ themes, but I felt it at least raised awareness of some important topics. A strong 4.5 stars from me.
The main character of this book is 17-year-old Dean, seen by most as a female. But Dean knows he's not 'Deanna', and when he's cast as a non-traditional Romeo in a school production, he gets to experience being male properly for the first time. He doesn't want to go back to living a life of pretend; but how will he tell his girlfriend that he's not a lesbian, he's a guy? Not to mention the huge ordeal of coming out to his parents...
This book follows Dean through a real rollercoaster of emotions and experiences that many of us may find hard to even comprehend. It's a story of love and loss, of growth, of self-acceptance, of strength and empowerment. Dean is bullied, his once-perfect plans are tossed in the air, and everything seems so uncertain. Yet he navigates his way through this tremendously difficult time and builds some valuable relationships along the way. Most importantly, though, he begins to understand the importance of accepting himself.
Overall, the book was a really enjoyable read. There was a lot of emotion, and I really felt connected to Dean as a character despite not necessarily relating to him/his circumstances. I can't say whether this is a particularly good representation of LGBTQ+ themes, but I felt it at least raised awareness of some important topics. A strong 4.5 stars from me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Transphobia
rey_therese07's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Bullying, and Homophobia
Moderate: Deadnaming, Outing, Emotional abuse, and Violence
Minor: Suicide and Racism
jo_lzr's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Violence, and Bullying
Minor: Suicide
crackedspines_'s review
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
OVERALL: BPAR is an incredible book. The trans rep was so relatable for me, and it covered a lot of important topics. The writing style wasn’t my favorite, and I had some issues, but overall I really enjoyed it. I’m so glad I was able to read this book and I’m excited for Ray Stoeve’s next one!
PLOT: Dean’s growth as a character was so heartwarming to read. I was rooting for him through the entire book and I was very satisfied with the way the book ended.
THEMES: Something I really enjoyed about this book was the discussion of how Dean’s trans identity affected his relationship with Zoe. It’s a difficult topic to discuss but Stoeve did it gracefully. There’s also a strong theme of queer family and community, and it was so sweet. However, there is one scene I didn’t like: when Dean goes to a queer group, he’s too nervous to say his pronouns are he/him, so Jade says he hasn’t picked pronouns (which is what he told her). Then Isaac, the group leader, says “‘No problem […] you have options. He? She? They?’” This positions those as the only options, and it’s not okay to pressure someone into picking pronouns. Some people don’t use pronouns, and some people just aren’t ready yet.
WRITING: I didn’t really like the writing much. Stoeve relied on run-on sentences as well as long sentences that were technically grammatically correct but read as incomplete. This is fully a personal preference though, and even though I didn’t love the writing it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the book too much.
CHARACTERS: I have SO MUCH love for all of the characters. Dean, our flawed, trying-his-best trans main character. Ronnie was the absolute best friend, and I love him for that. And while I hate Zoe, she was a complex, well-developed character. I do wish that Allison’s behavior was addressed more head-on, and it was very strange that it wasn’t mentioned that she was Japanese until Chapter 15. Her Japanese identity felt like an afterthought.
PLOT: Dean’s growth as a character was so heartwarming to read. I was rooting for him through the entire book and I was very satisfied with the way the book ended.
THEMES: Something I really enjoyed about this book was the discussion of how Dean’s trans identity affected his relationship with Zoe. It’s a difficult topic to discuss but Stoeve did it gracefully. There’s also a strong theme of queer family and community, and it was so sweet. However, there is one scene I didn’t like: when Dean goes to a queer group, he’s too nervous to say his pronouns are he/him, so Jade says he hasn’t picked pronouns (which is what he told her). Then Isaac, the group leader, says “‘No problem […] you have options. He? She? They?’” This positions those as the only options, and it’s not okay to pressure someone into picking pronouns. Some people don’t use pronouns, and some people just aren’t ready yet.
WRITING: I didn’t really like the writing much. Stoeve relied on run-on sentences as well as long sentences that were technically grammatically correct but read as incomplete. This is fully a personal preference though, and even though I didn’t love the writing it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the book too much.
CHARACTERS: I have SO MUCH love for all of the characters. Dean, our flawed, trying-his-best trans main character. Ronnie was the absolute best friend, and I love him for that. And while I hate Zoe, she was a complex, well-developed character. I do wish that Allison’s behavior was addressed more head-on, and it was very strange that it wasn’t mentioned that she was Japanese until Chapter 15. Her Japanese identity felt like an afterthought.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying and Transphobia
Moderate: Violence
noyastan's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia, Dysphoria, and Bullying
Minor: Deadnaming, Suicide, and Outing
hollandward's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- 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? No
3.25
I think we come to books for different reasons, and this book just didn’t serve me in the way I expected it to or wanted it to. I wouldn’t say anything in this book is explicitly bad. More like, there was good stuff, and there was ehhh stuff. First, the good:
Dean’s path towards realizing his transness and exploring his transness felt very real and honest in a way I hadn’t seen before in a book, and I enjoy that bit of it immensely. The scene where he tries on binders for the first time, for example, was a great bit--and one that I myself had gone through and found myself nodding along to the narration.
Centering the story around Romeo and Juliet was a fun thematic choice as well. Taking the sort of hallmark of cis-het romance and flipping it on its head with a trans lead, and specifically using a play we’ve all probably read in high school: a good call on the author’s part. It felt right.
The cast of characters is diverse, which is always good to see. In every YA book I read nowadays there’s always a few lines that are ripped right from Tumblr discourse and feel out-of-place in the narrative: coming across less like genuine moments of dialogue or narration and more like the author feels the need to plainly state their stance on Today’s Issues, for whatever motive. It annoys me, frankly, but this book did not have as many as some I’ve read recently, and for that I am grateful.
And now, the ehh:
The bullying bit--specifically the act of transphobic violence in the hallway--was a touch too much for me. Not as a “this is unbelievable and wouldn’t actually happen” thing, but more just because I had been hoping this book would surprise me, and in some ways this was a very predictable path. It’s that odd space of knowing that, yes, the threat of violence hangs over us as trans people every day, AND the media is dominated by stories of physical abuse towards trans people because they sell better. Again, we come to books for different reasons, and this did not align with what I hoped for in the novel.
In comic book theory, there’s this idea that the less detailed a face is, the more easily a person can see themselves in the narrative. The fewer details, the more we’ll project, until the plain smiley face becomes a vessel for ourselves. In my reading of this book, Dean is that smiley face. Apart from being trans, he isn’t given much in terms of personality, likes, or dislikes. He loves theater. He loves Zoe. He loves David Bowie. He likes...coffeeshops, I guess? And that’s all I’ve got. With so little to go off of, he’s the perfect mannequin onto which readers can project themselves. I think for a lot of readers, that’s a huge selling point: “he’s just like me! I can see myself clearly in him and his journey!” Love it, very cool, AND that didn’t work for me. I wanted Dean to be….well, Dean! I wanted him to be his own person, a living, breathing inhabitant of this world. I didn’t get that. I value flawed main characters and narrators. And for me, Dean was really lacking that key element to his character. All of the secondary characters around him are nuanced, flawed individuals who Dean gets to call out--whether internally or externally--for their problematic behavior or statements. Every time Zoe, for example, says something questionable, we get a full breakdown in Dean’s head of why what she said was wrong. But we don’t see any of that with Dean. Not necessarily because Dean is The Unproblematic Fave (though there is that undertone frequently, that Dean just seems to know better than all of his friends and colleagues, and is always dealing with THEIR mistakes and never the other way around, etc), but because Dean just doesn’t get to do much of anything except be a trans guy. I wanted to see him with flaws, making mistakes, doing the wrong things.
The title of this book assumes that one of the big arcs in this book would be Dean’s realization that the world is nuanced. People and experiences are rarely wholly good or bad: instead, we exist in this tenuous, ever-changing space, the “between” of it. And I think this book almost makes it there, but falls short. We come so close to these powerful moments of making the distinction between the perfect--which Dean wants--and the real. Zoe, for example, who Dean pedestals as perfect throughout most of the book, reveals her humanness in her imperfect handling of Dean’s transness. But instead of pushing beyond a black-and-white value assessment of her worth and “goodness” as a person to acknowledge the nuance of people and their capacity for growth and learning, she’s just...dropped. Called “problematic” by everyone involved, and never spoken of again except to reiterate that she was wrong and bad. Zoe was wrong, certainly. Her impact caused Dean harm. Dean is not obligated to forgive her. However in a story titled “Between Perfect and Real”, it is expected that there would be some discussion of how assuming perfection leads to heartbreak, to disappointment, to damaged expectations. The field was wide open, the game-winning goal right in front of us, and yet the book didn’t make the shot. By the end of it all, I was left wanting. I could see all the missed chances to give us that something real.
I suppose I myself entered this book with expectations closer to perfection--it had received such glowing praise, so many anecdotes from other trans people of how this book was amazing, how they sobbed through it all, how this book was The Moment--and instead of perfection I found something closer to “real”: a good idea, some good scenes, but missing what I was hoping for: nuance, complexity, surprises, growth.
So, overall, not my favorite book I’ve read. Glad it exists, but it just didn’t give me what I was hoping for.
Dean’s path towards realizing his transness and exploring his transness felt very real and honest in a way I hadn’t seen before in a book, and I enjoy that bit of it immensely. The scene where he tries on binders for the first time, for example, was a great bit--and one that I myself had gone through and found myself nodding along to the narration.
Centering the story around Romeo and Juliet was a fun thematic choice as well. Taking the sort of hallmark of cis-het romance and flipping it on its head with a trans lead, and specifically using a play we’ve all probably read in high school: a good call on the author’s part. It felt right.
The cast of characters is diverse, which is always good to see. In every YA book I read nowadays there’s always a few lines that are ripped right from Tumblr discourse and feel out-of-place in the narrative: coming across less like genuine moments of dialogue or narration and more like the author feels the need to plainly state their stance on Today’s Issues, for whatever motive. It annoys me, frankly, but this book did not have as many as some I’ve read recently, and for that I am grateful.
And now, the ehh:
In comic book theory, there’s this idea that the less detailed a face is, the more easily a person can see themselves in the narrative. The fewer details, the more we’ll project, until the plain smiley face becomes a vessel for ourselves. In my reading of this book, Dean is that smiley face. Apart from being trans, he isn’t given much in terms of personality, likes, or dislikes. He loves theater. He loves Zoe. He loves David Bowie. He likes...coffeeshops, I guess? And that’s all I’ve got. With so little to go off of, he’s the perfect mannequin onto which readers can project themselves. I think for a lot of readers, that’s a huge selling point: “he’s just like me! I can see myself clearly in him and his journey!” Love it, very cool, AND that didn’t work for me. I wanted Dean to be….well, Dean! I wanted him to be his own person, a living, breathing inhabitant of this world. I didn’t get that. I value flawed main characters and narrators. And for me, Dean was really lacking that key element to his character. All of the secondary characters around him are nuanced, flawed individuals who Dean gets to call out--whether internally or externally--for their problematic behavior or statements. Every time Zoe, for example, says something questionable, we get a full breakdown in Dean’s head of why what she said was wrong. But we don’t see any of that with Dean. Not necessarily because Dean is The Unproblematic Fave (though there is that undertone frequently, that Dean just seems to know better than all of his friends and colleagues, and is always dealing with THEIR mistakes and never the other way around, etc), but because Dean just doesn’t get to do much of anything except be a trans guy. I wanted to see him with flaws, making mistakes, doing the wrong things.
The title of this book assumes that one of the big arcs in this book would be Dean’s realization that the world is nuanced. People and experiences are rarely wholly good or bad: instead, we exist in this tenuous, ever-changing space, the “between” of it. And I think this book almost makes it there, but falls short. We come so close to these powerful moments of making the distinction between the perfect--which Dean wants--and the real.
I suppose I myself entered this book with expectations closer to perfection--it had received such glowing praise, so many anecdotes from other trans people of how this book was amazing, how they sobbed through it all, how this book was The Moment--and instead of perfection I found something closer to “real”: a good idea, some good scenes, but missing what I was hoping for: nuance, complexity, surprises, growth.
So, overall, not my favorite book I’ve read. Glad it exists, but it just didn’t give me what I was hoping for.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia and Bullying
Moderate: Emotional abuse