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thefantasticalworldofsara's review against another edition
4.0
I finished this book in basically a day because holy crap !!! it was so good !!! Getting to read about a trans person fall in love and be supported was just *chef’s kiss*
If you’re looking for a cute YA book to read I really recommend this!!
Ps. The views expressed in this review are my own and do not reflect the views of Indigo Books & Music Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. #IndigoEmployee
If you’re looking for a cute YA book to read I really recommend this!!
Ps. The views expressed in this review are my own and do not reflect the views of Indigo Books & Music Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. #IndigoEmployee
jkpark's review against another edition
emotional
fast-paced
- 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
3.0
jowithtwoiis's review against another edition
5.0
I just can't say enough good things about this book. I loved Felix so much as a human being; I just felt his soul through the pages. I'm not trans but I did question my gender at the age Felix is in the book and also being black and queer (but suppressing it heavily in my own case) just brought me back to a really rough time in my life. I felt like I cried every time he cried and felt such triumph when he figured out his own worth, his own heart.
This was a beautiful, fast, but moving read. Can't recommend it enough.
This was a beautiful, fast, but moving read. Can't recommend it enough.
mae_ogas's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
hayley_bourn's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
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? Yes
4.0
brigid_'s review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Trans joy ❤️
mlv97's review against another edition
The writing style somehow really bothered me and I kept being completely distracted and out of the story. Maybe I'll try again some other time.
audreyglj's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I didn't mesh well with the MC, the author uses beautiful descriptive language though
mariahistryingtoread's review against another edition
4.0
This book is held in high esteem by a ton of people on Twitter. I have seen pretty much only rave reviews across the board since this book came onto my radar. I originally was going to read this for a book club in like September. But, better late than never.
And I was pleasantly surprised.
Make no mistake Felix has his share of poor, truly stupid decisions. The one that sets everything in motion is literally guaranteed to blow up in his face. Yet, I found him endearing all the same. At the outset the only thing Felix and I seemed to have in common was being black. He's living the kind of teenage experience (parties, drinking, weed smoking, staying with your bestie at his Brooklyn apartment all alone) that I've really only seen in movies. Underneath all that though is someone desperate to find his place in the world which is something I think everyone can relate to.
I started out not liking Felix initially. But, that quickly faded as I got to know him better. What I disliked about him - his quick temper - made so much more sense in context. As a person who has fallen into a pattern of sublimating my emotions it's hard for me to recognize that it's okay to express emotion in a certain way. What's 'logical' isn't always right. And this book explores that a lot with Felix. There are things he should have definitely considered more and looking out at it from a big picture kind of perspective, yes he hurt someone massively, but those were the right decisions at the moment for him because in the long run those decisions are what helped him to improve. While I expect him to continue to make mistakes I also feel confident that he won't do what he did in this book again either. I liked that I actually felt the growth in this book. Felix took accountability in a way that I could never have done at his age as conflict avoidant as I was.
(Also considering the fact that a lot of 'mistakes' made by white teens often involves propagating bigotry I was willing to let Felix have his big screw-ups in this. Harmful as they were at least his actions were limited to that of his immediate social sphere rather than a reflection of a larger systemic issue being swept under the rug as a 'phase')
I have only read two other books where trans characters take center stage however neither of those books were about the characters’ life as trans people so this was a different read for me. It was really interesting to get into Felix's head. The conversations about identity were my favorite aspects. Despite me not being trans Felix and I had a worryingly similar thought process about a lot of things that made me very invested in his struggles. Where we differed - whether that be in choices or our perspective on life or the hardships we had to face - I came away feeling like I had a better understanding of what trans people or people questioning their identity must go through. I'll never be able to fully comprehend what it's like, but I feel like reading this will aid me in being a better ally in the future.
Felix grappling with the incongruity of his fathers’ actions was all too familiar. And Felix gets it twice over since his mother abandoned him for a totally new family. Felix's dad paid for Felix to have top surgery, works his butt off to pay for Felix to go to a fancy art school, and lets Felix live unabashedly as he is in their home. But, his father also deadnames him, and refuses to say (whether consciously or not) the name Felix and occasionally misgenders him. Yet, Felix knows for a fact that his father loves him wholeheartedly. It's a conflict that so many teenagers come up against. You say that you love me, yet you do x, y, z. It's a brutal day when you realize your parents are human beings with their own blind spots. This book did a great job of balancing the two points of view. Felix's dad is wrong, but there's also room to be sympathetic to him as well. I really identified with Felix's anger at his Father for not immediately just doing the right thing. Like if you love me you should be able to do this thing for me. But, it's not that simple and it's not fair to hold their learning curve against them if they're really trying. At the same time don't let them just 'try' forever. You deserve genuine effort and you should hold them accountable when/if they falter because you deserve that basic respect regardless of how massive an undertaking it can be for them to shift their perception of you.
Now onto the reasons why this was 4 stars instead of 5.
I didn't like the way it ended. A lot of this is tied up in the revelations and I don't want to spoil it so I apologize in advance for some of the sidestepping vagueness.
An underlying plot point is that Felix has been facing a big mental block in regards to his art. He needs a great portfolio to have a chance at getting the one scholarship to Brown University and he faces major competition in the form of former friend turned enemy Declan Keane. All of this pressure results in him doing nothing at all for a long time. That part is fine. I have also definitely had those moments of the paralyzing inability to do something significant because the fear of failure is so overwhelming I can't even bring myself to put in the effort to start.
What I didn't like was how easily this was rectified. It felt disingenuous that Felix could barely pick up his paintbrush and then it suddenly clicked after a few conversations. I'm an artist myself and admittedly, inspiration can just strike like this. I get that. My problem is that I didn't feel the significance of the moment it clicked because his art was not given its due in the narrative for this moment to feel earned. There's a point in the book where a couple of people are hanging out. And Leah(?) says that Felix is really talented; an oft mentioned statement by several different people. And another character says that she actually doesn't feel that he is. She says he's clearly got skill and she's constantly hearing about how good he is but she thinks he's holding back. Felix is upset but acknowledges that she has a point. However, Felix doesn't do anything with this information. He sits on it until another character essentially gifts him the end of his mental block. I did not feel like Felix put in the necessary effort to fix it for himself. This is a microcosm of other problems with Felix as a character.
I wanted Felix to throw himself into his art. I wanted his art to reflect how far he'd come emotionally. I wanted to read about artists he was into or artists he didn't like. For an art kid, Felix didn't seem all that into it. I don't know if Kacen Callender is an artist or not, but it felt like they glossed over the details. If you're as into art in general as Felix was supposed to be it will be a way bigger chunk of your personality. A lot of Felix lacked dimensionality in this regard. In hindsight a lot of this book was anchored in his introspection on his identity but didn't explore who Felix was past that. I don’t know what music Felix likes. I don’t know what his least favorite class is. I don’t know what shows he likes to watch. I don’t know what his favorite move was growing up. I know some things are rooted in his dysphoria; Felix does not like to think about what his life was like before he was able to transition. But, that still leaves like 3 years in the interim where he has made memories that should inform his characterization.
All characters outside of Felix face a similar issue. There was enough to them that I wouldn’t call them flat, however, it was very limited. For example Felix notes multiple times that he misjudged Leah. But he does nothing with her until the very end when he's got no one left around him. It came off as exploitative considering the fact that she's trying to help him find the person who put up all the old pictures of him in the gallery but he can’t even be bothered to learn anything about her other than lesbian photographer. She's only good enough to hang out with when he has no one he actually wants and in terms of the story her character is criminally underused. It’d be one thing if this was intentional. However, it’s clear by the end that this is supposed to be a case of finding a friend in an unexpected place. And we don’t know anything about her to justify the friendship which is the problem with all the relationships in this book. There is a ton of telling and not showing.
A central part of the novel is Felix’s catfishing which becomes a sort of love triangle. I found it difficult to root for either of these relationships because there wasn’t enough fleshing out of either of the contenders. The only one I could muster up any interest in was the Catfish one because there was some actual communication there. For the other love interest we were simply told a lot of things without any follow through. It mostly amounted to a few looks that Felix apparently was misinterpreting. Except it could have gone either way due to how subtle it was. I low-key thought that the book was going in a certain direction, but that’s only because it was a trope not because the book was properly leading me to that conclusion.
Coupled with Felix’s near all consuming self-examination it was even harder to see how this was a valid choice. He barely looked at Not!Catfish in that way. And with the book hinging on Felix’s internal conflict, you would think that if he did care about this person romantically it would be way obvious. Later on Callender tries to justify it as ‘Felix subconsciously ignored his feelings because he didn’t think he deserved it’ which yeah, I totally think that is a possibility. But, I think it makes more sense for Felix especially considering his arc if he were to have acknowledged it early on within himself and subconsciously rationalized it away because of his fear. It would have been a less jarring transition from total obliviousness to sudden clarity. Or alternatively, Callender could have included more obvious moments between the two characters to better pave the way towards this direction. Actively watching Felix sabotage attempts to move forward would have also worked. As it stands I don't understand why Not!Catfish didn't just go for it when there weren't any signs that Felix was disinterested. Heck, Felix openly exclaims that he wants love several times. It's never explained why Not!Catfish never tried anything.
Felix knows he's transgender. He knows for certain he's not a girl, but there's also something that feels a little off when it comes to being called a boy. He eventually finds a label that he feels best describes him that he's happy with. This happens very rapidly. I understand that once you find your label (if you find your label and/or care about labels) that it can be an immediate absorption. My hangup is that there's this plot element of Felix going to this Gender Identity support group that could have been more useful in building to Felix's discovery. Felix goes only twice, and right after the second time is when he finds out that demiboy is a thing. It would have been good if Felix started going regularly to this group at the beginning so that he (and us as the readers) could learn more about other trans peoples' perspectives on different subjects. After all no minority is a monolith and because of the variety in the lives lived you can have a million different opinions. The little I read about really made me think and I would have appreciated that anchor throughout the entire story as Felix worked through the complexity of his situation. I think he could have benefitted from having the sounding board.
I don't like that the person who did the gallery/was cyberbullying Felix was revealed. Felix's arc was about accepting himself as is; point blank period. When he has his epiphany he decides he no longer cares who it is because in the end it doesn't matter what they think. Amazing. I loved that for him. Only it's very quickly undone by the reveal a little after that. Outside of that the reveal is also tied into a very heavy handed spiel on privilege that I can't fully get into without spoiling it. I didn't disagree with the points made. I fully endorse it and my bae (who shall be nameless because you might be able to piece it together) went off. But, it felt unnecessary. Like dumping on a character for the catharsis of the reader rather than it making sense in the story to add it. It also was the easy choice compared to the potential fall-out if it were someone closer to Felix. But, it's hard to choose someone else that might function better when the characters are so underdeveloped; which is why I say it shouldn't have come out at all.
This ties into some of the little biases built into the story about privilege in general. Ezra is shamed by Felix for having money. Felix apologizes because yeah, Ezra has money but that doesn't negate his obstacles. Yet, Felix still low-key is dismissive of the issues Ezra faces. I think this could have been a chance to add depth to their relationship if Felix was forced to grapple with his own prejudice. Just because your minority doesn't mean you haven't internalized some bad messaging. Yes eat the rich, however, if they're your super close friend that has supported you to the bitter end maybe try to have some empathy instead of internally shrugging them off? To be fair Felix isn't awful about this. It's more of a small undercurrent running through than anything else. I'm just trying to create opportunities for other characters to participate in the story more.
The love triangle resolution happens so late in the game that there was no time to see the two together which regardless of me not shipping it was disappointing. To me, after the ship gets together is crucial. After all that slow-burn you need that moment to enjoy it.
To make a long story short the ending is too much wish fulfillment for me. And I'm not totally knocking that. I understand that Callender and a majority of readers don’t want to see Felix - who will face probably triple the amount of opposition in life than most people will encounter - get a good ending. Personally, I love happy endings. I love the super ultra fluff fuzzy endings. I just think that this book was written to be more realistic and then threw it away for the sappy ending. In turn, this unfortunately resulted in some elements feeling rushed and/or undeserved.
This may seem pretty negative, but I seriously enjoyed this book. When it got moving I couldn't put it down. I highly recommend it. Kacen Callender is clearly talented and I cannot wait to read more of their books in the future.
And I was pleasantly surprised.
Make no mistake Felix has his share of poor, truly stupid decisions. The one that sets everything in motion is literally guaranteed to blow up in his face. Yet, I found him endearing all the same. At the outset the only thing Felix and I seemed to have in common was being black. He's living the kind of teenage experience (parties, drinking, weed smoking, staying with your bestie at his Brooklyn apartment all alone) that I've really only seen in movies. Underneath all that though is someone desperate to find his place in the world which is something I think everyone can relate to.
I started out not liking Felix initially. But, that quickly faded as I got to know him better. What I disliked about him - his quick temper - made so much more sense in context. As a person who has fallen into a pattern of sublimating my emotions it's hard for me to recognize that it's okay to express emotion in a certain way. What's 'logical' isn't always right. And this book explores that a lot with Felix. There are things he should have definitely considered more and looking out at it from a big picture kind of perspective, yes he hurt someone massively, but those were the right decisions at the moment for him because in the long run those decisions are what helped him to improve. While I expect him to continue to make mistakes I also feel confident that he won't do what he did in this book again either. I liked that I actually felt the growth in this book. Felix took accountability in a way that I could never have done at his age as conflict avoidant as I was.
(Also considering the fact that a lot of 'mistakes' made by white teens often involves propagating bigotry I was willing to let Felix have his big screw-ups in this. Harmful as they were at least his actions were limited to that of his immediate social sphere rather than a reflection of a larger systemic issue being swept under the rug as a 'phase')
I have only read two other books where trans characters take center stage however neither of those books were about the characters’ life as trans people so this was a different read for me. It was really interesting to get into Felix's head. The conversations about identity were my favorite aspects. Despite me not being trans Felix and I had a worryingly similar thought process about a lot of things that made me very invested in his struggles. Where we differed - whether that be in choices or our perspective on life or the hardships we had to face - I came away feeling like I had a better understanding of what trans people or people questioning their identity must go through. I'll never be able to fully comprehend what it's like, but I feel like reading this will aid me in being a better ally in the future.
Felix grappling with the incongruity of his fathers’ actions was all too familiar. And Felix gets it twice over since his mother abandoned him for a totally new family. Felix's dad paid for Felix to have top surgery, works his butt off to pay for Felix to go to a fancy art school, and lets Felix live unabashedly as he is in their home. But, his father also deadnames him, and refuses to say (whether consciously or not) the name Felix and occasionally misgenders him. Yet, Felix knows for a fact that his father loves him wholeheartedly. It's a conflict that so many teenagers come up against. You say that you love me, yet you do x, y, z. It's a brutal day when you realize your parents are human beings with their own blind spots. This book did a great job of balancing the two points of view. Felix's dad is wrong, but there's also room to be sympathetic to him as well. I really identified with Felix's anger at his Father for not immediately just doing the right thing. Like if you love me you should be able to do this thing for me. But, it's not that simple and it's not fair to hold their learning curve against them if they're really trying. At the same time don't let them just 'try' forever. You deserve genuine effort and you should hold them accountable when/if they falter because you deserve that basic respect regardless of how massive an undertaking it can be for them to shift their perception of you.
Now onto the reasons why this was 4 stars instead of 5.
I didn't like the way it ended. A lot of this is tied up in the revelations and I don't want to spoil it so I apologize in advance for some of the sidestepping vagueness.
An underlying plot point is that Felix has been facing a big mental block in regards to his art. He needs a great portfolio to have a chance at getting the one scholarship to Brown University and he faces major competition in the form of former friend turned enemy Declan Keane. All of this pressure results in him doing nothing at all for a long time. That part is fine. I have also definitely had those moments of the paralyzing inability to do something significant because the fear of failure is so overwhelming I can't even bring myself to put in the effort to start.
What I didn't like was how easily this was rectified. It felt disingenuous that Felix could barely pick up his paintbrush and then it suddenly clicked after a few conversations. I'm an artist myself and admittedly, inspiration can just strike like this. I get that. My problem is that I didn't feel the significance of the moment it clicked because his art was not given its due in the narrative for this moment to feel earned. There's a point in the book where a couple of people are hanging out. And Leah(?) says that Felix is really talented; an oft mentioned statement by several different people. And another character says that she actually doesn't feel that he is. She says he's clearly got skill and she's constantly hearing about how good he is but she thinks he's holding back. Felix is upset but acknowledges that she has a point. However, Felix doesn't do anything with this information. He sits on it until another character essentially gifts him the end of his mental block. I did not feel like Felix put in the necessary effort to fix it for himself. This is a microcosm of other problems with Felix as a character.
I wanted Felix to throw himself into his art. I wanted his art to reflect how far he'd come emotionally. I wanted to read about artists he was into or artists he didn't like. For an art kid, Felix didn't seem all that into it. I don't know if Kacen Callender is an artist or not, but it felt like they glossed over the details. If you're as into art in general as Felix was supposed to be it will be a way bigger chunk of your personality. A lot of Felix lacked dimensionality in this regard. In hindsight a lot of this book was anchored in his introspection on his identity but didn't explore who Felix was past that. I don’t know what music Felix likes. I don’t know what his least favorite class is. I don’t know what shows he likes to watch. I don’t know what his favorite move was growing up. I know some things are rooted in his dysphoria; Felix does not like to think about what his life was like before he was able to transition. But, that still leaves like 3 years in the interim where he has made memories that should inform his characterization.
All characters outside of Felix face a similar issue. There was enough to them that I wouldn’t call them flat, however, it was very limited. For example Felix notes multiple times that he misjudged Leah. But he does nothing with her until the very end when he's got no one left around him. It came off as exploitative considering the fact that she's trying to help him find the person who put up all the old pictures of him in the gallery but he can’t even be bothered to learn anything about her other than lesbian photographer. She's only good enough to hang out with when he has no one he actually wants and in terms of the story her character is criminally underused. It’d be one thing if this was intentional. However, it’s clear by the end that this is supposed to be a case of finding a friend in an unexpected place. And we don’t know anything about her to justify the friendship which is the problem with all the relationships in this book. There is a ton of telling and not showing.
A central part of the novel is Felix’s catfishing which becomes a sort of love triangle. I found it difficult to root for either of these relationships because there wasn’t enough fleshing out of either of the contenders. The only one I could muster up any interest in was the Catfish one because there was some actual communication there. For the other love interest we were simply told a lot of things without any follow through. It mostly amounted to a few looks that Felix apparently was misinterpreting. Except it could have gone either way due to how subtle it was. I low-key thought that the book was going in a certain direction, but that’s only because it was a trope not because the book was properly leading me to that conclusion.
Coupled with Felix’s near all consuming self-examination it was even harder to see how this was a valid choice. He barely looked at Not!Catfish in that way. And with the book hinging on Felix’s internal conflict, you would think that if he did care about this person romantically it would be way obvious. Later on Callender tries to justify it as ‘Felix subconsciously ignored his feelings because he didn’t think he deserved it’ which yeah, I totally think that is a possibility. But, I think it makes more sense for Felix especially considering his arc if he were to have acknowledged it early on within himself and subconsciously rationalized it away because of his fear. It would have been a less jarring transition from total obliviousness to sudden clarity. Or alternatively, Callender could have included more obvious moments between the two characters to better pave the way towards this direction. Actively watching Felix sabotage attempts to move forward would have also worked. As it stands I don't understand why Not!Catfish didn't just go for it when there weren't any signs that Felix was disinterested. Heck, Felix openly exclaims that he wants love several times. It's never explained why Not!Catfish never tried anything.
Felix knows he's transgender. He knows for certain he's not a girl, but there's also something that feels a little off when it comes to being called a boy. He eventually finds a label that he feels best describes him that he's happy with. This happens very rapidly. I understand that once you find your label (if you find your label and/or care about labels) that it can be an immediate absorption. My hangup is that there's this plot element of Felix going to this Gender Identity support group that could have been more useful in building to Felix's discovery. Felix goes only twice, and right after the second time is when he finds out that demiboy is a thing. It would have been good if Felix started going regularly to this group at the beginning so that he (and us as the readers) could learn more about other trans peoples' perspectives on different subjects. After all no minority is a monolith and because of the variety in the lives lived you can have a million different opinions. The little I read about really made me think and I would have appreciated that anchor throughout the entire story as Felix worked through the complexity of his situation. I think he could have benefitted from having the sounding board.
I don't like that the person who did the gallery/was cyberbullying Felix was revealed. Felix's arc was about accepting himself as is; point blank period. When he has his epiphany he decides he no longer cares who it is because in the end it doesn't matter what they think. Amazing. I loved that for him. Only it's very quickly undone by the reveal a little after that. Outside of that the reveal is also tied into a very heavy handed spiel on privilege that I can't fully get into without spoiling it. I didn't disagree with the points made. I fully endorse it and my bae (who shall be nameless because you might be able to piece it together) went off. But, it felt unnecessary. Like dumping on a character for the catharsis of the reader rather than it making sense in the story to add it. It also was the easy choice compared to the potential fall-out if it were someone closer to Felix. But, it's hard to choose someone else that might function better when the characters are so underdeveloped; which is why I say it shouldn't have come out at all.
This ties into some of the little biases built into the story about privilege in general. Ezra is shamed by Felix for having money. Felix apologizes because yeah, Ezra has money but that doesn't negate his obstacles. Yet, Felix still low-key is dismissive of the issues Ezra faces. I think this could have been a chance to add depth to their relationship if Felix was forced to grapple with his own prejudice. Just because your minority doesn't mean you haven't internalized some bad messaging. Yes eat the rich, however, if they're your super close friend that has supported you to the bitter end maybe try to have some empathy instead of internally shrugging them off? To be fair Felix isn't awful about this. It's more of a small undercurrent running through than anything else. I'm just trying to create opportunities for other characters to participate in the story more.
The love triangle resolution happens so late in the game that there was no time to see the two together which regardless of me not shipping it was disappointing. To me, after the ship gets together is crucial. After all that slow-burn you need that moment to enjoy it.
To make a long story short the ending is too much wish fulfillment for me. And I'm not totally knocking that. I understand that Callender and a majority of readers don’t want to see Felix - who will face probably triple the amount of opposition in life than most people will encounter - get a good ending. Personally, I love happy endings. I love the super ultra fluff fuzzy endings. I just think that this book was written to be more realistic and then threw it away for the sappy ending. In turn, this unfortunately resulted in some elements feeling rushed and/or undeserved.
This may seem pretty negative, but I seriously enjoyed this book. When it got moving I couldn't put it down. I highly recommend it. Kacen Callender is clearly talented and I cannot wait to read more of their books in the future.