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A review by jugglingpup
Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable
4.0
To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.
I saw this book and didn’t think anything of it. It didn’t look anything special at first. Now that I have read it I see so many details on the cover that are just so important to the story. The art fits the story so well and the cover is just one example of how well the artist was able to capture the story. The art was one of my favorite parts of this story.
The story itself was complicated. There was the Catholic school girl plot, there was the plot of attempting to date, the plots of coming to terms with being gay, and more. The idea that got under my skin was the big mystery that was not what I was expecting at all. I will just have to leave the twist alone so not to spoil it.
While I loved that there were openly trans characters, I was not impressed with how the tranpshobia was handled in the book. The characters CONSTANTLY misgendering the main trans character got on my nerves real quick. There was no punishment, no sense that misgendering is wrong or dangerous. It just stunk of cis authors trying to be diverse, but not quite getting it as much as they thought they did. There were some amazing scenes like when a character comes out as trans and doesn’t immediately reveal his birth name/dead name. That was a big bonus for me. The fact that the trans guy’s plot wasn’t coming out or not passing was also wonderful. It was like the author understood trans 101 by the end of the book, but not in the beginning or the middle. It was so close, SO CLOSE.
Bisexuality was a thing in this book. OH BOY WAS IT A THING! I am going to be clear, I am adding labels to this character because his sexuality was not discussed at length. So few labels were used, instead characters were just characters. So for lack of having the words of the character, I will go with bisexual. He had been with boys and girls. Its the closest word I have unless I grill the authors for the label. I am so happy when I see positive bi/pan/poly representation in media. It is so rare that it is anything but “that person is a slut, gross” that when I see something wholesome like this I just want to hug the authors and thank them.
Overall, this story was more complicated than just coming out. There were more complex characters than I was expecting. If the transphobia wasn’t such a central plot that just went unresolved for me this would have been a five star graphic novel.
I saw this book and didn’t think anything of it. It didn’t look anything special at first. Now that I have read it I see so many details on the cover that are just so important to the story. The art fits the story so well and the cover is just one example of how well the artist was able to capture the story. The art was one of my favorite parts of this story.
The story itself was complicated. There was the Catholic school girl plot, there was the plot of attempting to date, the plots of coming to terms with being gay, and more. The idea that got under my skin was the big mystery that was not what I was expecting at all. I will just have to leave the twist alone so not to spoil it.
While I loved that there were openly trans characters, I was not impressed with how the tranpshobia was handled in the book. The characters CONSTANTLY misgendering the main trans character got on my nerves real quick. There was no punishment, no sense that misgendering is wrong or dangerous. It just stunk of cis authors trying to be diverse, but not quite getting it as much as they thought they did. There were some amazing scenes like when a character comes out as trans and doesn’t immediately reveal his birth name/dead name. That was a big bonus for me. The fact that the trans guy’s plot wasn’t coming out or not passing was also wonderful. It was like the author understood trans 101 by the end of the book, but not in the beginning or the middle. It was so close, SO CLOSE.
Bisexuality was a thing in this book. OH BOY WAS IT A THING! I am going to be clear, I am adding labels to this character because his sexuality was not discussed at length. So few labels were used, instead characters were just characters. So for lack of having the words of the character, I will go with bisexual. He had been with boys and girls. Its the closest word I have unless I grill the authors for the label. I am so happy when I see positive bi/pan/poly representation in media. It is so rare that it is anything but “that person is a slut, gross” that when I see something wholesome like this I just want to hug the authors and thank them.
Overall, this story was more complicated than just coming out. There were more complex characters than I was expecting. If the transphobia wasn’t such a central plot that just went unresolved for me this would have been a five star graphic novel.