Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Felix Ever After

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

314 reviews

mindfullybritt's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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

4.0

Felix Ever After follows Felix, a Black, queer, trans man who is struggling to find where he fits in. Always feeling like he is “too marginalized” Felix has few friends, and few people he truly feels safe with.
One day at school, someone anonymously outs and deadnames Felix, which fuels a fire of revenge within him.
These characters are all so flawed and complex and so very much teens. This book covers very heavy topics of transphobia, racism, classism, homophobia, and important topics of belonging, gender identity, privilege, all within the struggles of being a teenager. Felix Ever After is an important book!
And, I struggled to connect a bit, mostly because teenagers stress me out and most of the book didn’t need to happen if they all just talked to each other instead of being stubborn, mean, and egotistical teenagers! But I guess that’s the point and it felt accurate to how teens would actually behave!

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vespera's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring fast-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

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lucyeanderson's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

while ya isn’t the main genre i read anymore (which is a weird realisation to come to), i enjoyed this book still! it speaks on a lot of really important topics, and i think had i read this as a teen it would have been even better and relatable - i seriously think this should be required reading in schools as it can be analysed and discussed so deeply. i loved the cast of characters, especially leah and ezra <3 - the diversity is unmatched, with so many different races, ethnicities, social backgrounds and life experiences! i did. find some of felixs reactions and choices frustrating to read - but again probably because i’m reading as a logical adult and this is definitely aimed at the teen thought process. but i thought the book was such a good introduction to queer issues and a personal perspective of a young trans guy! i liked that it spoke on issues such as deadnaming but didn’t include felixs actual deadname - this is where first hand experience and writing from trans authors themselves is literally unmatched and can’t be replicated! i thought the book also discussed well parents who are supportive but still struggling - it made me feel empathy towards felixs father whilst also totally understanding felixs frustrated reaction. overall, though i didn’t vibe with things such as the first person present writing style (just honestly not my thing), i thought this was a wonderful book that would 100% be a lifeline for young queer kids, and should be encouraged if not mandatory reading for sure! 3.75 stars!

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bookicornia's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

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

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oceanebooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective 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

4.0

I don't really know where I should start, so I'll begin with the language.
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.

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kerry_mayyy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring sad 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

4.25

This was such a heartwarming story. I picked up this book from a queer library as a way of promoting banned books, and I’m so glad I picked this one.

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.

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