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2.82 AVERAGE
2.82 AVERAGE
Me earlier today: "Okay so far I'm enjoying this but I just skimmed through the reviews and yikes I am super concerned (and disappointed, I was expecting better after Lies We Tell Ourselves, which was so good). Should I even bother reading it if the representation is so flawed?"
Me now: I can't do this, it's a disaster honestly. I can not finish this book. I ended up skimming it to see what happened, but yeah...
First of all I want to say while I am not straight in my sexuality, I am cis and have not experienced what T has. But the reviews all seem to be having the same tone, so I am guessing I'm correct in thinking that this is terrible genderqueer representation. Yes, I am sure there are people that use genderqueer and then decide they are ftm or mtm. But the books acts like that is the case for EVERYONE. It acts like genderqueer is not a real identity.
This book has...I dunno know it some redeeming qualities I guess. Maybe.
Oh and I am pretty sure there is a teacher interested in T but I am not 100% sure. If so; ugh stop this.
Lines I hated:
ex "welcome to the formely genderqueer party!' (paraphrasing slightly) said via T's friends
lots of stuff Carroll said (if my friend said those things about my SO I would ditch that friend so fast but no Gretchen does not)
and that part many have pointed out where 'if you post pics of yourself in a bikini you are not a feminist'. WTF.
I'm incredibly disappointed by this. I loved Lies We Tell Ourselves, but this book...no.
Me now: I can't do this, it's a disaster honestly. I can not finish this book. I ended up skimming it to see what happened, but yeah...
First of all I want to say while I am not straight in my sexuality, I am cis and have not experienced what T has. But the reviews all seem to be having the same tone, so I am guessing I'm correct in thinking that this is terrible genderqueer representation. Yes, I am sure there are people that use genderqueer and then decide they are ftm or mtm. But the books acts like that is the case for EVERYONE. It acts like genderqueer is not a real identity.
This book has...I dunno know it some redeeming qualities I guess. Maybe.
Oh and I am pretty sure there is a teacher interested in T but I am not 100% sure. If so; ugh stop this.
Lines I hated:
ex "welcome to the formely genderqueer party!' (paraphrasing slightly) said via T's friends
lots of stuff Carroll said (if my friend said those things about my SO I would ditch that friend so fast but no Gretchen does not)
and that part many have pointed out where 'if you post pics of yourself in a bikini you are not a feminist'. WTF.
I'm incredibly disappointed by this. I loved Lies We Tell Ourselves, but this book...no.
I really liked the structure of this book, and how we got to continually see both Tony and Gretchen’s point of view. The shifting perspective really kept the story moving forward. And I liked that Robin didn’t try to wrap it up in a nice little bow at the end. It still feels finished and hopeful, but it’s also a little messy and real, which feels genuine.
Ultimately, kudos to Robin for writing this story in a way that allows us to consider something incredibly complex and personal—who we are, both as individuals and with others—in a really thoughtful and multilayered way.
Ultimately, kudos to Robin for writing this story in a way that allows us to consider something incredibly complex and personal—who we are, both as individuals and with others—in a really thoughtful and multilayered way.
I have so many emotions about this book. I just see so many things wrong with it...
Review:
This book follows Toni who identifies as genderqueer and her relationship with Gretchen as they go away to separate universities, one going to Havard, the other NYU.
The book did sound really good and when I started reading this book back in August and I really liked the characters and was fully invested in the writing, it was definitely well-written. However as the book progresses you see how problematic it is. Toni switches between genderqueer and transgender and as a lot of people on Goodreads said this is not a reality for many people who identify as gender-queer.
I also had problems with the relationship with Toni and Gretchen as the story progresses and I did not like the direction that it went in at all. Saying this I did like both Toni and Gretchen but the characters that they surround themselves with are not very nice... at all. One of Grethen's friends consistently calls Toni derogatory terms that I don't really want to say on my blog as Toni identifies with being genderqueer. This is ironic because for a book that celebrates LGBT+ issues in a book it just doesn't seem right and I really dislikes this aspect. I understand that this may be what some people in society still think but I would not have included in a book personally. I also have problems with the way that characters especially Toni talks about feminism in this book, suggesting that just because Cheerleaders do a carwash in their bikinis they can't be feminism when to me this just is not right at all.
I do feel like this book would be really good if you did not really know about LGBTQ+ issues and would definitely be more of a romance story but this just was not the case for me. I have heard good things about Robin Talley's other books so I hope I enjoy them more than this one.
Review:
This book follows Toni who identifies as genderqueer and her relationship with Gretchen as they go away to separate universities, one going to Havard, the other NYU.
The book did sound really good and when I started reading this book back in August and I really liked the characters and was fully invested in the writing, it was definitely well-written. However as the book progresses you see how problematic it is. Toni switches between genderqueer and transgender and as a lot of people on Goodreads said this is not a reality for many people who identify as gender-queer.
I also had problems with the relationship with Toni and Gretchen as the story progresses and I did not like the direction that it went in at all. Saying this I did like both Toni and Gretchen but the characters that they surround themselves with are not very nice... at all. One of Grethen's friends consistently calls Toni derogatory terms that I don't really want to say on my blog as Toni identifies with being genderqueer. This is ironic because for a book that celebrates LGBT+ issues in a book it just doesn't seem right and I really dislikes this aspect. I understand that this may be what some people in society still think but I would not have included in a book personally. I also have problems with the way that characters especially Toni talks about feminism in this book, suggesting that just because Cheerleaders do a carwash in their bikinis they can't be feminism when to me this just is not right at all.
I do feel like this book would be really good if you did not really know about LGBTQ+ issues and would definitely be more of a romance story but this just was not the case for me. I have heard good things about Robin Talley's other books so I hope I enjoy them more than this one.
i am DNFing this after two chapters because my eyes can only handle so much rolling before i become concerned that they will get stuck that way. maybe this gets better, but i will never know.
Firstly thanks to Harlequin Teen Australia for this review copy.
Review originally posted at Fiction in Fiction in Fiction
What We Left Behind started with a prologue of instalove. Alarm bells were going off in my head when I read this. I decided to give WWLB the benefit of the doubt as I progressed through the first chapter because this book deals with very important issues. Transgender/genderqueer books are rare and few, and pretty much non-existent in YA. I’m not at all knowledgeable about this community of people who don’t identify with the sex they were born with. As such I thought by reading WWLB I would have a better understanding of genderqueer people and what they have to face.
What I got instead were two teenage girls going off to college and both wallowing in self-pity. We have Toni who identifies with being genderqueer (somewhat, I’ll get onto this later) and her (his?) high school sweetheart Gretchen who’s all sorts of supportive and an amazing girlfriend. They’re hailed as the perfect couple but there’s trouble in paradise when they go to college in different states and find their own friends. Toni finds the genderqueer community at Harvard and fits right in, while Gretchen just sort of trudges through her college life at NYU.
In reality this isn’t about Toni and Gretchen. It’s really about Toni and the effect her/his selfishness has on those around them. Honestly Toni got worse and worse for me throughout the book. I wanted to shake this girl/guy so hard. They’re struggling to figure out where they fit in on the gender scale and says they’re non-binary (identifying as neither male or female) which is fine by me. But she/he decides to lecture everybody else on this. Toni goes on and on about how they hate gender pronouns (I just went through this whole paragraph editing because I wrote ‘she’) and I swear to god every time I read from their perspective I felt like I was getting a textbook lecture. Yes you’re struggling with your identity Toni, yes everybody is different, but no you are NOT the centre of the world. Toni has this amazing support network of other transgender and genderqueer students as soon as she/he enters Harvard but feels they too need to be lectured. That nobody should be using gender pronouns. This pissed me off because some of those people clearly wanted to identify as a particular gender and Toni was denying them that which they had struggled so much to reach. It was like Toni’s opinion of not fitting in a particular gender applied to everybody but nobody else understood her/him. As a result Toni pushes away anybody who isn’t part of his/her community and assumes such outsiders couldn’t ever possibly understand what he/she is going through. No consideration for other people’s feelings whatsoever. Nope. This selfishness. Went. On. For. The. Whole. Damn. Book.
Poor Gretchen tries to understand what Toni is going through. Gretch is actually the most supportive girlfriend ever. She’s always thinking about what she’s saying so as not to offend Toni, she stops using gender pronouns too. I really liked Gretchen as a person overall. She’s very selfless but at the same time a bit of a doormat. It annoyed me the way she let other people walk over her (especially Toni). However, she does grow as a person and I liked her character development towards the end of the book.
I generally liked the supporting characters, especially Toni’s friends. I liked Derek’s enthusiasm and being able to see Eli’s transition – his struggles and the family aspect. I thought that, of Toni’s friends, Nance was the most realistic. Nance wasn’t afraid to tell Toni that she thought Toni was acting all high and mighty. On Gretchen’s side we got very little. She had one friend and one roommate and I would’ve liked more of this. What I didn’t like about the secondary characters was that anybody who was straight/cis was portrayed as ignorant and/or hateful, even the nicer characters (or they barely appeared in the book). Like what, we’re not all like that. Some of us want to understand (hence why I read this book).
Romance wise I just did not get the feels. I was just annoyed at Toni because Gretchen kept giving and Toni kept taking and not giving back. That is not how relationships work. I have nothing more to say about this because the romance just didn’t work for me.
Plot wise, the story is just the progression through the school year following Toni as they try to find their identity with bits of Gretchen interspersed. I thought there could have been a whole lot more world-building with regards to college life and the difference between Harvard and NYU.
And let’s also add in that as genderqueer/transgender representation goes, this book was centred on a college community within Harvard. All these students are privileged either way. So what, you might think, doesn’t mean they don’t have the same problems as others. But being privileged changes many things. Toni’s friends and himself/herself included were loaded. They could all afford to buy the things they needed/wanted and pay for doctors/treatment. Toni took their family’s money for granted and would just spend and spend their parent’s credit card. Toni had no job, couldn’t technically support himself/herself (most people I know had their own income in college, myself included) and I thought that while they were struggling with gender identity, being affluent meant they were ignorant to a whole lot of other issues. I mean this isn’t even that important/doesn’t really relate to the book but it was another thing that ticked me off.
I felt that What We Left Behind could have been a really good book because the premise is fantastic, addressing a topic that’s not widely talked about in YA. Sadly it just fell short and I couldn’t enjoy it at all.
Review originally posted at Fiction in Fiction in Fiction
What We Left Behind started with a prologue of instalove. Alarm bells were going off in my head when I read this. I decided to give WWLB the benefit of the doubt as I progressed through the first chapter because this book deals with very important issues. Transgender/genderqueer books are rare and few, and pretty much non-existent in YA. I’m not at all knowledgeable about this community of people who don’t identify with the sex they were born with. As such I thought by reading WWLB I would have a better understanding of genderqueer people and what they have to face.
What I got instead were two teenage girls going off to college and both wallowing in self-pity. We have Toni who identifies with being genderqueer (somewhat, I’ll get onto this later) and her (his?) high school sweetheart Gretchen who’s all sorts of supportive and an amazing girlfriend. They’re hailed as the perfect couple but there’s trouble in paradise when they go to college in different states and find their own friends. Toni finds the genderqueer community at Harvard and fits right in, while Gretchen just sort of trudges through her college life at NYU.
In reality this isn’t about Toni and Gretchen. It’s really about Toni and the effect her/his selfishness has on those around them. Honestly Toni got worse and worse for me throughout the book. I wanted to shake this girl/guy so hard. They’re struggling to figure out where they fit in on the gender scale and says they’re non-binary (identifying as neither male or female) which is fine by me. But she/he decides to lecture everybody else on this. Toni goes on and on about how they hate gender pronouns (I just went through this whole paragraph editing because I wrote ‘she’) and I swear to god every time I read from their perspective I felt like I was getting a textbook lecture. Yes you’re struggling with your identity Toni, yes everybody is different, but no you are NOT the centre of the world. Toni has this amazing support network of other transgender and genderqueer students as soon as she/he enters Harvard but feels they too need to be lectured. That nobody should be using gender pronouns. This pissed me off because some of those people clearly wanted to identify as a particular gender and Toni was denying them that which they had struggled so much to reach. It was like Toni’s opinion of not fitting in a particular gender applied to everybody but nobody else understood her/him. As a result Toni pushes away anybody who isn’t part of his/her community and assumes such outsiders couldn’t ever possibly understand what he/she is going through. No consideration for other people’s feelings whatsoever. Nope. This selfishness. Went. On. For. The. Whole. Damn. Book.
Poor Gretchen tries to understand what Toni is going through. Gretch is actually the most supportive girlfriend ever. She’s always thinking about what she’s saying so as not to offend Toni, she stops using gender pronouns too. I really liked Gretchen as a person overall. She’s very selfless but at the same time a bit of a doormat. It annoyed me the way she let other people walk over her (especially Toni). However, she does grow as a person and I liked her character development towards the end of the book.
I generally liked the supporting characters, especially Toni’s friends. I liked Derek’s enthusiasm and being able to see Eli’s transition – his struggles and the family aspect. I thought that, of Toni’s friends, Nance was the most realistic. Nance wasn’t afraid to tell Toni that she thought Toni was acting all high and mighty. On Gretchen’s side we got very little. She had one friend and one roommate and I would’ve liked more of this. What I didn’t like about the secondary characters was that anybody who was straight/cis was portrayed as ignorant and/or hateful, even the nicer characters (or they barely appeared in the book). Like what, we’re not all like that. Some of us want to understand (hence why I read this book).
Romance wise I just did not get the feels. I was just annoyed at Toni because Gretchen kept giving and Toni kept taking and not giving back. That is not how relationships work. I have nothing more to say about this because the romance just didn’t work for me.
Plot wise, the story is just the progression through the school year following Toni as they try to find their identity with bits of Gretchen interspersed. I thought there could have been a whole lot more world-building with regards to college life and the difference between Harvard and NYU.
And let’s also add in that as genderqueer/transgender representation goes, this book was centred on a college community within Harvard. All these students are privileged either way. So what, you might think, doesn’t mean they don’t have the same problems as others. But being privileged changes many things. Toni’s friends and himself/herself included were loaded. They could all afford to buy the things they needed/wanted and pay for doctors/treatment. Toni took their family’s money for granted and would just spend and spend their parent’s credit card. Toni had no job, couldn’t technically support himself/herself (most people I know had their own income in college, myself included) and I thought that while they were struggling with gender identity, being affluent meant they were ignorant to a whole lot of other issues. I mean this isn’t even that important/doesn’t really relate to the book but it was another thing that ticked me off.
I felt that What We Left Behind could have been a really good book because the premise is fantastic, addressing a topic that’s not widely talked about in YA. Sadly it just fell short and I couldn’t enjoy it at all.
I was so excited for this book but I have to say that after reading it I'm a little disappointed, especially about how non-binary genders are portrayed. See, by the end of the book, there are no non-binary people. Non-binary genders are portrayed as a stepping stone to a binary one. There are some people who do that, but it's disappointing to see this portrayed as the main story, with no other non-binary characters - only binary trans people. For context, I'm a non-binary person who most of the time, feels closer to agender than female or male. Sometimes I feel like a girl. Rarely I feel like a boy. Gender can be fluid.
Also, I didn't like Tony. He was sort of Problematic. There's one part where he points out that girlie things mean cisgender, which ... uh ... trans boys can wear dresses. Agender people can wear makeup. Trans girls can wear jeans. And I didn't like how he refused to use gendered pronouns for most of the book. It felt disrespectful to the binary trans characters who wanted "he" pronouns.
The characters and story wasn't anything special. I didn't like the Instalove. I mean, I'm thrilled about trans representation but this only represented trans men, and we need more than that.
Also, I didn't like Tony. He was sort of Problematic. There's one part where he points out that girlie things mean cisgender, which ... uh ... trans boys can wear dresses. Agender people can wear makeup. Trans girls can wear jeans. And I didn't like how he refused to use gendered pronouns for most of the book. It felt disrespectful to the binary trans characters who wanted "he" pronouns.
The characters and story wasn't anything special. I didn't like the Instalove. I mean, I'm thrilled about trans representation but this only represented trans men, and we need more than that.
This was a really great read for me. I had to pick it up after reading Talley's Debut Lies We Tell Ourselves. And while they are both completely different novels, Talley's voice and grasp on character development won me over again. Toni and Gretchen are great characters and I really enjoyed the way the book was able to explore them as individuals as well as going through that first year of college and starting to really discover yourself as a person. The pronouns were a really interesting way to develop through the story also. Just read it, you'll understand what I mean instantly.
I got about 50% of the way through and skim-read the ending. Normally i wouldn't even add this as read on goodreads but I think it is important to do so with this book.
I cannot speak for the representation in this book so all my opinions on the matter are inconsequential; however, I did read several reviews once I got halfway through the novel and they were very alarming. I learned that this book does not explore gender identity, more specifically, genderqueer identity in an authentic way. It misrepresented what it means to be genderqueer and treated this identity as a transitional phase which it is not. I recommend reading this review: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/13224422-jessie-devine
What I picked up from this were a lot of transphobic slurs, in addition to lesbophobic and biphobic comments. These weren't just one-time occurrences (and even if they were they would still be hurtful and wrong), it was a frequent event throughout the narrative to the point where I felt uncomfortable reading, because NO ONE WAS CALLED OUT. It all got swept under the rug. The two main characters were thoroughly unlikeable, and while I can appreciate the art of unlikeable characters, these two were too much.
Additionally, you could find the typical derogatory view of women in general and I am not here for this. As I saw mentioned in other reviews, it seems like the author just wanted to include every diverse element so they would get a pat on the back for their efforts. But when your efforts are perfunctory you do more harm than good, and there was no good here.
I cannot speak for the representation in this book so all my opinions on the matter are inconsequential; however, I did read several reviews once I got halfway through the novel and they were very alarming. I learned that this book does not explore gender identity, more specifically, genderqueer identity in an authentic way. It misrepresented what it means to be genderqueer and treated this identity as a transitional phase which it is not. I recommend reading this review: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/13224422-jessie-devine
What I picked up from this were a lot of transphobic slurs, in addition to lesbophobic and biphobic comments. These weren't just one-time occurrences (and even if they were they would still be hurtful and wrong), it was a frequent event throughout the narrative to the point where I felt uncomfortable reading, because NO ONE WAS CALLED OUT. It all got swept under the rug. The two main characters were thoroughly unlikeable, and while I can appreciate the art of unlikeable characters, these two were too much.
Additionally, you could find the typical derogatory view of women in general and I am not here for this. As I saw mentioned in other reviews, it seems like the author just wanted to include every diverse element so they would get a pat on the back for their efforts. But when your efforts are perfunctory you do more harm than good, and there was no good here.
I have very mixed feelings about this book. Fundamentally I enjoyed it and my 11y.o. non-binary kid loved it, but there are definitely problems.
I thought the central relationship was cute and at the same time depicted how " we never fight" can be an illusion of true love and also a sign of really poor conflict resolution skills and people who aren't really clear enough or confident enough to say what they actually want themself.
Tony's constant overtheorising and deliberation about his identity (and associated stuff like pronouns) rang fairly true to both me and my kid. (But I can see how it slows the book down and might not be interesting for everyone.)
So, problems... the really big one for me is that being genderqueer is depicted as a part of the process of transitioning to a binary identity, not a state of being in itself. For some people I'm sure that's true, but it really bothered me that none of the supportive queer crew around Tony (or for that matter, Gretchen), had a more stable non-binary or genderqueer identity.
Secondly, I felt Gretchen's character was underdeveloped, and there isn't much contemplation of what impact your partner transitioning might have on you own sexual identity. (It's sort of intimated she and Nance might have stuff to talk about but that doesn't really happen).
Third all the characters go to very top tier universities and are stinking rich- they have housekeepers and hop on a plane for an interview in the UK/impromptu coming out/ catch up with the gf-so it's a fantasy which doen't engage with intersectionality more than fleetingly. Main character gets his credit card cut off for about three minutes before mum relents.
Finally, I'm not that comfortable with the fact my 11y.o. read this, because of the amount of binge drinking, but that's somewhat par for the course for first year uni, just a head's up if that's a concern. (The sex and gender issues are totally fine for young teens and even tweens, and the discussion of homophobic/transphobic violence is very general and offstage at the level of "I got bashed up a lot at school" "people hassled him last year").
I thought the central relationship was cute and at the same time depicted how " we never fight" can be an illusion of true love and also a sign of really poor conflict resolution skills and people who aren't really clear enough or confident enough to say what they actually want themself.
Tony's constant overtheorising and deliberation about his identity (and associated stuff like pronouns) rang fairly true to both me and my kid. (But I can see how it slows the book down and might not be interesting for everyone.)
So, problems... the really big one for me is that being genderqueer is depicted as a part of the process of transitioning to a binary identity, not a state of being in itself. For some people I'm sure that's true, but it really bothered me that none of the supportive queer crew around Tony (or for that matter, Gretchen), had a more stable non-binary or genderqueer identity.
Secondly, I felt Gretchen's character was underdeveloped, and there isn't much contemplation of what impact your partner transitioning might have on you own sexual identity. (It's sort of intimated she and Nance might have stuff to talk about but that doesn't really happen).
Third all the characters go to very top tier universities and are stinking rich- they have housekeepers and hop on a plane for an interview in the UK/impromptu coming out/ catch up with the gf-so it's a fantasy which doen't engage with intersectionality more than fleetingly. Main character gets his credit card cut off for about three minutes before mum relents.
Finally, I'm not that comfortable with the fact my 11y.o. read this, because of the amount of binge drinking, but that's somewhat par for the course for first year uni, just a head's up if that's a concern. (The sex and gender issues are totally fine for young teens and even tweens, and the discussion of homophobic/transphobic violence is very general and offstage at the level of "I got bashed up a lot at school" "people hassled him last year").
2.5 stars. I liked both the main characters (Gretchen was the more obviously likeable, but I could relate more to Toni's personality, positive and negative) and it wasn't a drag to read, but by the end I wasn't sure what the point was. Everyone just seemed to get more confused and go round and round in circles, and by the end nothing was fully resolved (maybe that's the point, but...). As a cis person I don't feel I can comment too much on the trans issues in the book but many people feel this misrepresents genderqueer identity, and it definitely presented that as a transitional state rather than a firm identity.