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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Mental illness, Dysphoria
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
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
emotional
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
"Maybe that’s what people are supposed to do, sponge out the bad, wring out the suffering as much as we can, even if it stains our hearts and hands."
.
Bellies is a novel about growing up and into yourself, however many times you need to. It's a novel about love and loss and the inherent mess of it all. It's a novel about grief, about holding each other through it, about wading through the murky waters of what is "right" and "ok." Bellies is about messing up and fucking up and loving so intensely you end up hurting and being hurt in the process; it's about how none of that has to make you into a villain. It's a gentle and tender novel at its core.
What I love so much about Bellies is how real the characters feel. They feel like the queer community I know. They remind me of the queerness I surround myself with- messy and imperfect and so full of love. I'm so exhausted by queer paragons, by queer characters who are perfect and not allowed to mess up. Dinan wrote a Messy Litfic Girl™️ and made her trans, she wrote a complicated and tumultuous love story about a gay man and his transfemme lover, she wrote about queer people doing hurtful things and she didn't turn them into villains. And god, I love her for it.
.
This novel isn't a romance, but it sure as hell is a love story. We meet Tom and Ming when they're both gay men, when they enter into what can best be described as young love. They're growing into themselves alongside each other, their self images almost don't exist separately from one another.
And then, Ming comes out. And Tom is forced to reckon with his love for Ming and his identity as a gay man. Ming is forced to confront her love for Tom with the reality that Tom's sexuality limits him from being the boyfriend she needs.
This novel is so honest and raw in how it says that love cannot fix everything. Love cannot always transcend. But that doesn't make the love less real, less true. Their love cannot stay romantic, but that doesn't mean it wasn't true for the time it was romance. It doesn't mean their love cannot evolve, however long that may take.
.
The way Dinan wrote transness in this novel felt so personal to me. Ming's coming out scene made me proper cry, and I don't cry easily when it comes to novels. I honestly haven't stopped thinking about the scene since I read it. Spoilers ahead, I'm gonna include some quote pulls.
"It was easier when I thought I was dying."
Transness as implosion. Transness as uprooting your comfort. Transness as scary and dangerous and difficult.
"It feels bigger than death."
Transness as more than the self. Transness as world changing, life changing. Transness not as loss, but as creating anew.
"I feel like I've been drawing an outline of myself using negative space."
Transness as creating oneself anew. Transness as baby steps, as chipping away, as construction of the self.
It's honest and it's messy and it made me sob while I was cooking soup. I'm reminded of the time I told my therapist that grappling with my transness often felt like implosion, and she said so earnestly, "it won't implode forever." I think Ming's coming out was her realizing that implosion was an inevitability, and it made my heart ache. But I also read it and reminded myself that it's not forever, it's never forever.
emotional
reflective
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:
Yes
emotional
funny
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
L’écriture est simple et fluide, parfois même un peu trop à mon goût. J’ai aimé suivre l’histoire de Ming et Tom, de l’évolution de leur relation. Les personnages ont leurs qualités et leurs défauts, ce qui fait qu’on veut parfois les prendre dans nos bras ou les secouer. J’ai aimé surtout la fin qui m’a beaucoup émue et où j’ai meme lâché quelques larmes. Je pense que le milieu du livre était assez ennuyeux néanmoins. C’etait intéressant d’avoir le pov d’une femme trans en pleine transition et de son petit ami gay qui essaye de se retrouver dans ces changements. Pas la lecture de l’année mais sympathique
challenging
emotional
inspiring
relaxing
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:
N/A
emotional
reflective
sad
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:
Complicated
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
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
A very easy read while still handling sensitive subjects and delving into the complexities of queer relationships and in particular, a trans journey in life and love. It was brilliantly done and had me in tears at the end. I loved the complexities of the characters most, which had me both cursing and rooting for each of them. I loved the journeys we follow with both Ming and Tom, but the others too, Rob, Cass, everybody. It all felt very real, like a glimpse into their lives. The diversity in the book was also brilliant. All round, *chefs kiss*
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
The writing is far too flowery - it feels like Dinan is trying to be Ocean Vuong when she should just be herself. I’m so glad she found her own voice when she wrote Disappoint Me. This story was just too predictable and boring, and the melodrama wasn’t believable. The characters did not feel real.