Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Felix Ever After

‘The issue is that we’ve never really gotten to see our own stories,’ Declan tells me. ‘We have to make those stories ourselves. Even if the creators made a character to be straight, they put those characters out into the world, right? So those characters are mine now. And I say that Steve and Bucky are gay as hell.’

At the beginning I was scared that I wasn’t going to like the book. Felix is a teen, confused and pressured by so many people, and I expected him to be perfect? The more I read the book, the more I understood Felix. All the mistakes he makes, all the times he messes up with people he cares deeply about. I was and still am making mistakes. I overreact when something huge happens and I don’t know what to do. And so does Felix. Creating a flawed character such as Felix is probably the best representation of a teenager navigating through life.

‘It’s weird,’ I tell him, ‘because I thought I’d already had it all figured out, you know?’

‘But that’s normal, right?’ he says. ‘When I started questioning whether I was into guys or not, I drove myself crazy for a while, going back and forth and trying to figure out if I’m into guys or girls or both or neither, and it felt like the answer kept changing every week. I was going insane.’

This story isn’t easy at times. There’s a lot of transphobia and I want you to be prepared because it can be hard to handle. Though this book is so damn queer and I understand when Mason Deaver wrote that this book ‘is going to change lives,’ because this story is so precious and important and opens so many conversations that are so needed, whether it’s about sexuality, gender identity, the queer community, love, self love. Being a teen is so hard, especially when you don’t fit in the boxes, and so I’m so glad that this story exists, because questioning yourself even when you thought you had it all figured out is so damn fine, and so I hope as many teens as possible can find Felix’s story to know that they aren’t alone and that they are worthy of love.

I realise, suddenly, that since Bex is non binary, any of the people in this café could be, too. Maybe I shouldn’t assume anyone’s gender as I draw them. There’s someone with wrinkles, a blazer, an infectious laugh; someone closer to my age with green hair and a nose ring, showing their braces when they give their friend a wide smile. The longer I sit here and sketch, the better my art become — it helps to look at the people around me, really look at them, instead of seeing who I assume them to be.

For any queer person reading this, if you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely give it a go. It’s a love letter to queerness and we all need to read it.

Content Warnings