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bookicornia's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Deadnaming
alex_johnson_2021's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
Moderate: Abandonment, Transphobia, Outing, and Deadnaming
oceanebooks's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
It's informal, sometimes very informal but at the same time very realistically how people and especially young adults/teenagers speak. I liked that Kacen Kallender were able to capture that so well, even though that meant a lot of "fuck"s and "shit"s. Meanwhile, I wasn't the biggest fan of the narrating style per se, the choice of words just wasn't very poetic but realistic, but this isn't really a critique because we all know I have a bias for poetic language and expression.
Onto the plot: I was surprised how the author was able to cover so many different topics in one book (like yeah, it had 350 pages but still...) and execute them all so well. With Felix, they created a very unique personality, whose thoughts and feelings the reader gets to experience very detailed and non-filtered. The whole thing with the struggle of (gender-)identity was something I personally could really relate to even though I'm not trans. But this kind of questioning yourself and wanting to find out who you are and if you even want to label yourself was beautifully portrayed.
But: Sometimes it was also hard to understand Felix, just because he's so different (from his personality) than I am and therefore acted sometimes like the complete opposite of what I would have done. Kacen Kallender keeps him a very human and realistic character and clearly shows everyone else's flaws, too, so you have to accept their misbehaviour and mistakes in order to love them unconditionally. And again, I loved the realistic aspect of that, especially the conflict between Felix and his father (just because of the portrayal).
I have just one thing to criticise and that is that the ending almost felt too good. Everyone ends up with the person they want to be with, the whole identity struggle is pretty much solved and also the family and school conflicts, too, so yeah - that was the only less realistic aspect maybe. But again this is not entirely negative because of course the book has to bring an end to all these topics when it ends, too.
"Felix ever after" is a book that made me think, that gave me comfort and at the same time discomfort, made me laugh and made me sad - it was a book I sacrificed my sleep for. So yeah, it was pretty good.
Graphic: Transphobia, Bullying, Deadnaming, and Abandonment
Moderate: Homophobia
thirdeyeangel23's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Bullying, Deadnaming, Body shaming, and Transphobia
kerryem's review against another edition
- 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
But this book was an absolute joy to read. The writing style was simple yet addicting, I found myself saying “just one more chapter” many times. I highly recommend to any queer book lovers of any age but especially to young queer teens of color who are struggling to figure themselves out and where they see themselves in the world.
Beautiful story and a great book to end pride month with.
-*small spoilers?*-
My only reason for not giving it five stars is just because I’m not a personal fan of the ‘catfishing’ trope and just the general YA trend of main characters not being very good friends. It’s not bad at all, as it is the main character’s story and it’s fitting for a young character like Felix to go through this journey to understand who’s important to him. Just my own personal nit-picky opinion with a trend I’ve seen in YA books. Side characters can easily feel like they’ve been written just to further the main characters plot which isn’t necessarily bad, there’s just an extra depth to a story when you can see these side characters and imagine they have their own little life outside the book. But again, not a huge deal, I still completely fell in love with Leah and Ezra.
Moderate: Bullying, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Dysphoria, Outing, and Transphobia
fluffyfox's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, Dysphoria, Deadnaming, Bullying, and Outing
karla_burbujadeletras's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Moderate: Transphobia
Minor: Deadnaming
_p0ssum_'s review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Deadnaming, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Bullying
paulineerika's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Transphobia and Deadnaming
pawprintedpages's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Moderate: Transphobia, Deadnaming, Outing, and Bullying
Minor: Alcohol and Homophobia