Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Between Perfect and Real

This is one of the best depictions of trans(masc mostly) youth you can find in a book according to me, the trans and queerness in it doesn’t feel forced and I can relate to it a lot. It’s also not based on a bunch of stereotypes (like a lot of other trans books I’ve read), most likely because it’s actually written by a trans writer. However, sometimes I feel like the plot was a bit rushed (might’ve just read it too fast though lol) and the sentences were a bit hard to read now and then. Overall: lovely book!!

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rey_therese07's review against another edition

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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

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hollandward's review against another edition

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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.

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cameronreads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring 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

4.5

Sometimes you just read a book and you're pretty sure the author must have opened your brain up and poured it onto the pages. That was Between Perfect and Real for me. I have no idea how to review this book that isn't 'dude same!!!' So necessary and truthful. There were loads of really important conversations and messages, and I loved how it explored the variety of different responses to coming out, as well as the importance of talking to people, specifically people who understand. I cried so many times reading this book. My new aspiration is to play Dean in a movie adaptation (adaptation gods if you're listening please hit me up). This is my new number one book to recommend people if they want to learn about the trans experience.

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wind_dog's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative sad 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? Yes

5.0

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imstephtacular's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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thedambookshelf's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense 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

3.0

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thank you to Netgalley and Amulet Books for the E-ARC of Between Perfect and Real in exchange for an honest review.

Between Perfect and Real is a YA debut about Dean Foster who is a trans boy finding his identity. Dean is a senior in high school who has adopted theater into his bones since he was a kid. Though Dean knows he is trans everyone at school, his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director think he's a lesbian. Dean struggles with the idea of keeping who he truly is bottled down until college and makes the decision that he doesn't want to hide who he is until then.

This book was a solid three stars and I honestly struggled slightly with determining that rating because I did love this story but it dwindled out for me towards the end.

Dean is a very relatable character and as someone who is genderfluid, I could truly feel the depth of his character and struggle to find his identity and voice. I loved that Dean was written to be very complex and emotional. He felt very fleshed out to me, but his friend group? Not so much.

I loved Zoe, I found her character to be as real as Dean's. Did I enjoy her outing her boyfriend? No. Even so, she was sincere about her mistakes, and given her circumstances, I felt she was very naive, and given the chance to be educated she would have been a better character.

Ronnie was a sweetheart, Allison really irritated me because she just wasn't present much and when she was, I felt as if she was so passive. The support group Dean meets was probably my favorite, though Jade was kind of annoying with all of the negative advice or outcomes Dean could face. Yes, it's realistic that not everything is sunshine and rainbows but personally I didn't feel it was the best solution every time Dean came looking for advice. So that leaves me with how I felt about their blossoming relationship - not a fan.

Blake... that was so confusing. I feel like there was a lot of potential there plot-wise and it just fell off.

I felt the same way with the theater themes as well. We know that theater is a big part of Dean's life but we don't spend a lot of time in the theater or Romeo's role as Dean. I just expected a lot more from that.

Aside from that Dean's journey is fresh and realistic. That's why it's a solid three stars, I just didn't enjoy the ending all that much.

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