Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Call Me Nathan

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Call Me Nathan by Catherine Castro

9 reviews

vidoc's review against another edition

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Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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loverrbboy's review

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2.0

from what i understand, this is written by a cis person who has a family friend with a trans kid. this is clear when reading it, to me at least. it shows some of the most gory, angry, visible parts of growing up trans. but not the mental ones, to me. nathan’s relationship with his brother is sweet though. maybe it’s just the fact that this was translated from french that makes it read a bit strangely.

the main things that stand out to me:
1) this is written about a trans person who knows they are a binary trans man from a young age, something i simply can’t relate to

2) someone who wants and then undergoes a full medical masculinizing transition process. he experiences no discomfort around these procedures, and his mother’s feelings about this are touched on briefly but not enough.

3) someone who is very disconnected from his lesbianism, basically never saw himself as a girl. someone who had girlfriends early on, someone conventionally attractive and who passed before hormones

idk i wanted to like it but it wasn’t for me. why is a cis woman making this anyway?

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nerdysread's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.0

Bof. Vraiment bof. C’est dur à lire. Heureusement que je ne l’ai pas lu lors d’un épisode de dysphorie hein. Il y a quelques passages intéressant mais sinon on dirait plus un livre écrit par et pour les personnes cis avec pas mal de voyeurisme (les coupures, les organes…). Un peu un « documentaire » M6 quoi mais en bd. Ah et pleins de TW: Automutilation, Transphobie, Deadname, Homophobie, Dysphorie violente, « body horror », Mégenrage

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krys_kilz's review

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challenging emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

If I had realized that this book was not actually written/told by a trans person, I never would have picked it up.

You could tell it was an outsider perspective with the way it tried to cram Nathan's story in with his parents, brother, and friend's experiences of his transition. The entire story veered into trauma porn. There were so many triggering topics and the story just jumped from one traumatic incident to the next with no time to reflect. Nathan felt like a weird prop instead of a person, like the reader was just meant to consume his pain and never actually get to know him. As another reviewer put it, it was voyeuristic and violent.

Then we have the writing itself, which was sporadic, messy, and all over the place. The narrative jumped around so much I had a very hard time following. And a lot of the writing made no sense. I don't know if this was due to the translation or if it was really just that poorly written. And like what was the ending?!?! Or that Islamophobic side comment his mom made about at least Nathan didn't join the jihad?!?

And finally, the artwork. I thought the art style and coloring were beautiful, but a lot of the drawings felt exploitative. Like they were going for shock value instead of genuine emotional connection.

Overall, this book left a bad taste in my mouth and quite frankly, I wish I never read it.

To fellow trans folks, I would strongly encourage you to avoid this book. And to cis folks, please ask yourself why you enjoyed a cis person's narrative of transphobic violence instead of reading stories actually told by us.

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