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4.03 AVERAGE

emotional tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
emotional funny hopeful sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
slow-paced
emotional tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I wish I liked this more, but Reese took way too long to see any character development? She never learned from her mistakes? I was getting a bit irate with her towards the end. Maybe it felt prolonged to me because the narration style also wasn’t doing it for me; it felt quite robotic.

So incredibly, kaleidoscopically queer 💓
challenging emotional reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I thought this was a beautiful story of self reflection and realization among a trio of flawed but lovable characters 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I have tried to push through this book and finish it but it just wasn't for me. Might give it a try next time but I prob won't

Favourite moment: Katrina the cis publisher 'empathising' with trans PR consultant Reese about something that Reese hadn't actually realised yet - that a famous trans author writing a book with the shocking title Tranny may effectively be forcing your transfemme readers to put a giant label on themselves in public ("I mean, how do you think she'd feel, reading it on the tube?") - AND THEN both characters agree that this is VERY selfish of her. (!!!)

Yeah... that's the most filthily meta-meta-ironic thing I've ever read.

This is the first book that's helped me to really understand the experience of trans women - what it feels like to deeply want to be a woman, so much that you would go through the stress of transitioning, and then living as one.

According to an interview in the Guardian, Peters has been criticised by other trans women for "airing trans women's dirty laundry". Presumably that's because it talks about trans sex. The book felt incredibly personal and honest, and I'm glad it was written that way.

I would like to say that it tackles sex and "fetish" in a way that's not fetishized. By this I mean that characters' particular sexuality bleeds into everyday life, and is deeply connected to their personhood. Sex doesn't sit in a separate box, a mysterious impulse that's switched on at sexy time, and then off again. Rather, it pops its head up from below the surface at all sorts of times, and mediates situations that most wouldn't like to consider sexual at all.

Sex isn't a given, natural result of gender, either: Peters treads well-worn paths of trans discourse by showing that sex is negotiated, sometimes in a power struggle, in order to get each character's needs met; it is used to affirm gender identity; sex causes conflicts; and it's threatened by major events in characters' lives. This is true in the real world for all people, cis and trans.

I hope that this book's provocative title propels it into immense popularity with cis people, and helps more people on their way to feeling comfortable with those ideas.

Peters has put me back in touch with the aspects of womanhood that are joyful, and I even felt a bit of gender envy.
challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes