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readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Sexual assault, Deadnaming, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Misogyny, Hate crime, Body shaming, Dysphoria, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Outing, and Transphobia
Moderate: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Death, and Medical content
Minor: Child death, Alcoholism, Suicide, Physical abuse, Self harm, Murder, Excrement, Sexual content, Biphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Vomit
use of f slurgrace_koalateareads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Transphobia, Violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, Suicidal thoughts, Outing, Emotional abuse, and Deadnaming
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Bullying
Minor: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Body shaming, Medical content, Vomit, Drug use, and Grief
whosfernn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Deadnaming, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Transphobia, Medical content, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Death, Drug use, Lesbophobia, and Homophobia
Moderate: Alcohol, Mental illness, Infidelity, Abandonment, and Bullying
Minor: Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Grief, and Religious bigotry
stailysh1's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
**Please read the content warnings before diving into this book.**
Graphic: Bullying, Dysphoria, Lesbophobia, Outing, Transphobia, Homophobia, and Hate crime
Moderate: Biphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Deadnaming, and Infidelity
Minor: Alcohol
elskabee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
I'd say please check for trigger warnings especially to do with transphobia and suicidal ideation. This book has a happy ending and for most of it a fairly light tone but it's not exactly cosy. It is about queer youth in Texas after all.
Graphic: Transphobia, Deadnaming, Violence, Outing, and Hate crime
Moderate: Dysphoria, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Alcohol and Drug use
queerloras's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Alcohol, Hate crime, Body shaming, Outing, Physical abuse, Transphobia, Toxic friendship, Bullying, Dysphoria, Biphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Deadnaming, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia
dealingwithdragons's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Bullying, Lesbophobia, Deadnaming, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Outing, Violence, Transphobia, and Dysphoria
Moderate: Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Alcoholism
lixard's review against another edition
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
- advertised as a romantic ya story between trans boy and a cis girl of different parts of the hs hierarchy......... what we got was much darker and more traumatic than promised
- i am not trans so i redirect you to check out some ownvoices reviewers but after reading/watching other such reviews,, i am better able to catch the unaddressed misogyny, (internalized and external) transphobia, and how the characters never seemed to grow out of that mindset or properly apologize for their actions and words
- it felt like that era of fanfiction that wrote super traumatic whump for the angst that you would read and cry to, which is valid in its own way, but definitely not forewarned, which seems problematic, esp. when targeted towards young (trans) audiences
- extra 0.5 stars because their flirty banter was nerdy and fun and made me chuckle and the writing (audiobook) was able to wring some tears from my eyes; the rest of the banter was a little far on what "teen-speak" is, though based on my old croon's 4 year old memory of high school
Graphic: Deadnaming, Hate crime, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Sexual assault, and Dysphoria
Moderate: Alcohol
rayne_1906's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
However, there are parts of this book that just really don't sit right with me. For one, the message being conveyed seems to be 'if you aren't openly trans, you are not a good person'. While the opposite is touched upon, the overarching theme is that the main character is a better person once he starts becoming an 'activist'. Activism is obviously important, but I think its wrong to assume a trans person must actively be 'helping' the community to have worth. Trans people should be allowed to exist just as they want to. Being openly trans is obviously what some people want, but the expectation that this applies to all trans people just isn't accurate.
Overall, this book, on surface-level, wasn't objectively bad, but I think it contained messages and themes that weren't particularly good.
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, and Hate crime
Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, Deadnaming, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, and Outing
Minor: Death, Homophobia, and Misogyny
seawarrior's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Ironically I enjoyed listening to Georgia's voice more, though she also behaves LGBTphobically for immature and downright ridiculous reasons. Her act of redemption is more solid and purposeful by the end. My favorite character in the story was probably Ted London, and I was disappointed that he mostly seemed used as a plot device. I didn't feel satisfied with his development either.
My other main issue was how there was never really a balance that Pony and Max found between accepting that some people need to be stealth for their own physical and mental safety, and that they can still stick up for other LGBT+ people at the same time. By the end this story read almost like a cautionary tale regarding both their perspectives, but they never even opened a dialogue about it.
I think the high points of this story are the messages that life continues after being outed, life continues after assault, life continues when binding becomes too dangerous to repeat, life continues when you have to wait for gender affirming medical interventions, life continues after being rejected or mocked for your gender and it continues even when you wish you weren't living it. Trans youth have so much more strength and grit than they usually give themselves credit for. And they're often surrounded by so much more love than they know. I was happy that these ideas were reflected in the book, but mostly at the very end, and only very briefly in comparison with the previous pages. I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to others. It's not totally terrible, but I had a lot of issues with the characters and with the narrative that went unresolved.
Graphic: Alcohol, Bullying, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Outing, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, and Vomit