Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore

59 reviews

discarded_dust_jacket's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

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

What worked: the thing I’m discovering about Anna-Marie McLemore is that their use of language can be so disarmingly beautiful—like I’ll read a sentence and audibly gasp—but not in a way that feels inaccessible. I’m not looking up every other word or anything, I’ll just think to myself: “what a lovely way to phrase that!”

As someone who is neurodivergent and non-binary myself, I also really identified with a lot of the descriptions of both Bastián’s ADHD and just the overall discussions of gender from both Bastián and Lore’s perspectives. There were so many times that I highlighted things just because it felt like I was reading something that had been taken out of my own brain.

(I’ve also never read a book where dyslexia was described so thoroughly, which I found really helpful because I know very little about how that feels for a person living with it.)

I appreciated that this was a story about accepting the parts of yourself that you wish you could expel. If you’re someone like me, who makes a habit of ruminating on all your bad days or moments, and allowing them to convince you that you’re irredeemable, then you will absolutely resonate with Bastián and Lore.

But what makes this story so powerful is that it reminds those of us with brains we have to put effort into working with, that our bad days are part of us too, and that doesn’t make us any less worthy of love.

“So many of us are haunted by versions of ourselves we wish we could exile. But the pieces of our beings don’t pull apart that easily. If we try to unweave ourselves, we unravel at the edges. So we all do the work of reconciling who we are now with the ghosts we once were.”

It also highlights, quite powerfully, how the bad thoughts and emotions that we attempt to suppress will only reinsert themselves with more force the more we refuse to deal with them.

Now here’s what didn’t work (for me): I struggled with the jumps between chapters more than a few times. The chapters are relatively short—sometimes less than a page long—which is not a problem at all, but the thing is, between chapters the story often jumps rather abruptly, and it wouldn’t be clear how much, if any, time had passed. You wouldn’t be sure if it was just a horizontal jump through space but not time (just a perspective shift from one character to another) or if you jumped forward in time as well.

The second big thing is the pacing lagged. I’d say for a large chunk of the middle part of the story, it didn’t feel like very much was happening and it got repetitive.

The chapters started to feel like “open with ‘the thing about living with ADHD is…’, maybe interact with friends or adults, then the world floods, colors everywhere, Lore/Bastián encounter one another mid-flood, the water recedes, rinse, repeat,” until finally around the 65/70% mark new things started happening and I felt reengaged.

I hope that doesn’t sound overly critical or put anyone off. Like I said, the language and the descriptions are lovely, and I think the book has a ton of value, especially for neurodivergent people and the folks who love them. Plus it has a ton of important commentary about racism (one really powerful quote that stuck out to me, was “I’m brown, and trans, and I have a learning disability. My sheer existence is as much nuance as I get to have. Who I am uses up all the space the world is willing to give me, and even that, I have to fight to keep open. I am already a living confrontation. My story doesn’t get to be complicated.”)

It’s a message that I think bears repeating again and again:

“Once you get past the fear of being seen, you can get to the part where you know you’re not alone.”

Content Warnings

ree_anna's review against another edition

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emotional 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? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

maeverose's review against another edition

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4.75

This book made me feel things. The imagery is so vivid and beautiful. I loved the way the magical realism and alebrijes were incorporated. The writing is beautiful. I relate very much to Bastián, though I’m not diagnosed I’ve been pretty sure for a while now that I have adhd, and there were so many quotes I related to. I wish I could’ve read this when I was a teen, I’d have probably loved it even more.

I also loved when they each helped each other with their respective neurodivergencies with the testosterone injections

.

The only things that bothered me was it was a little difficult to keep the two pov characters straight. They’re both very similar, but I found that they were almost a little too similar, to the point of me constantly having to check who’s pov I was in and remind myself who was who. It got easier towards the end but for the first half at least it was an effort. Second, this is probably nit picky but

I didn’t personally understand why Lore rejected Bastián when Bastián already said they accepted Lore as they were. It just felt like unnecessary drama for the sake of adding conflict. Though that might just be me struggling to see things from the perspective of a teenager who’s been through something I haven’t. It also felt like they kept having to explain their neurodiversity to each other, like they kept forgetting and assuming the other was neurotypical. I swear they each told the other multiple times as if it was the first.

Content Warnings

city_girl_writer's review

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emotional hopeful 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

Content Warnings

punky__pie's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.25

Lakelore is well-written, if a little drawn out in spots. Would be a great read for a teenager or young adult struggling with a recent neurodivergency diagnosis.
Lakelore incorporates magic in a really unique way that was super enjoyable, even as an adult. Definitely worth a read!

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janiscox's review against another edition

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emotional informative mysterious tense 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

4.25

A great book about gender diversity, beurodibergence and mental health. Took a bit to get into because I'm not very adept at colour names, but worth the read. Very touching end and a book I could have done with when I was a teen.

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siriface's review

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emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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maxgdy's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing 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

3.5

Content Warnings

caseythereader's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious 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

4.25

Content Warnings

ashylibrarian's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful 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? Yes

3.0

I wanted to love this book. The description sounded so promising and it was an anticipated read for me for 2022.

I love the trans rep. I love the neurodiversity rep. I love the relationships, platonic and romantic. I love the way in which Lore calls out the education system's flaws in teaching reading. Everything else just fell flat. I didn't feel like a lot happened and I was a bit confused by the world under the water.

This won't likely be a go-to recommendation for me, but I'll keep it on my list.

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