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A review by scrappydoo
Something Like Gravity by Amber Smith
3.0
TWs for assault, sexual assault, and nonconsensual outing of a trans character
Overall, I liked a lot about this book. I like books that explore sadness through anger, because when I'm sad I usually express it as anger myself. And these were some volatile, angry characters in a lot of ways.
But, going into this I was hesitant about a trans boy being written by a cis woman, and I think I was right to be. On the one hand, there were some terrible tropes: the fact that Chris was outed to Maia when she "accidentally" spied on him (her intention hadn't been to spy on him when she was outside his window, but she didn't leave when he came home) and she saw him take his binder off; and the fact that Chris's backstory includes sexual assault (he is beaten and his genitals are touched through his clothes without his consent, and it is later revealed his attacker had unzipped his pants with Chris beneath him on the ground) which is, unfortunately, a trope for a lot of LGBTQ+ characters.
This kind of history with traumas (esp. sexual traumas) is not uncommon for Amber Smith's books, and so I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed by the seeming lack of sensitivity required to write these kinds of scenes and their effects on trans people specifically.
Additionally, overall Chris's dysphoria was kind of all over the place; the things he did made little sense. The show vs. tell of his dysphoria don't really match up. You could definitely feel that it was written by a person without gender dysphoria, because the explanations of how he felt were surface level and his actions didn't match up.
Also, as other reviewers have mentioned, the incorrect usage of his binder is dangerous and yet not touched on, and the effects he must have been going through while taking T were also breezed over in a way that seemed odd. Maybe Smith was trying not to step on the toes of trans writers by staying out of trans-specific narratives (such as the process and effects of transitioning) in favor of just *having* a trans character without it being A Whole Trans Thing™, but seeing as Chris's storyline is entirely reliant on his transness anyways, it would seem that she had already put herself in the position of writing a trans-specific narrative. So she should have at least done it justice by doing her research (or showing us that she did it) and having more sensitivity readers (which I didn't really see mention of in acknowledgements, which is something I always look for in non-own voices stories). Instead, these fleeting mentions of transitioning made it feel like Chris was very much the One-Dimensional Trans Character with the cookie-cutter surface-level One Size Fits All trans experience.
All in all, this book still resonated with me in some ways; I think grief and loss and family trouble were all well-written and emotionally impactful. But I wouldn't recommend it as good trans rep, and really wish I could, because I desperately want to see more trans people being loved in YA. Thankfully, more and more own voices novels are coming out, so we have that to look forward to.
Overall, I liked a lot about this book. I like books that explore sadness through anger, because when I'm sad I usually express it as anger myself. And these were some volatile, angry characters in a lot of ways.
But, going into this I was hesitant about a trans boy being written by a cis woman, and I think I was right to be. On the one hand, there were some terrible tropes: the fact that Chris was outed to Maia when she "accidentally" spied on him (her intention hadn't been to spy on him when she was outside his window, but she didn't leave when he came home) and she saw him take his binder off; and the fact that Chris's backstory includes sexual assault (he is beaten and his genitals are touched through his clothes without his consent, and it is later revealed his attacker had unzipped his pants with Chris beneath him on the ground) which is, unfortunately, a trope for a lot of LGBTQ+ characters.
This kind of history with traumas (esp. sexual traumas) is not uncommon for Amber Smith's books, and so I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed by the seeming lack of sensitivity required to write these kinds of scenes and their effects on trans people specifically.
Additionally, overall Chris's dysphoria was kind of all over the place; the things he did made little sense. The show vs. tell of his dysphoria don't really match up. You could definitely feel that it was written by a person without gender dysphoria, because the explanations of how he felt were surface level and his actions didn't match up.
Also, as other reviewers have mentioned, the incorrect usage of his binder is dangerous and yet not touched on, and the effects he must have been going through while taking T were also breezed over in a way that seemed odd. Maybe Smith was trying not to step on the toes of trans writers by staying out of trans-specific narratives (such as the process and effects of transitioning) in favor of just *having* a trans character without it being A Whole Trans Thing™, but seeing as Chris's storyline is entirely reliant on his transness anyways, it would seem that she had already put herself in the position of writing a trans-specific narrative. So she should have at least done it justice by doing her research (or showing us that she did it) and having more sensitivity readers (which I didn't really see mention of in acknowledgements, which is something I always look for in non-own voices stories). Instead, these fleeting mentions of transitioning made it feel like Chris was very much the One-Dimensional Trans Character with the cookie-cutter surface-level One Size Fits All trans experience.
All in all, this book still resonated with me in some ways; I think grief and loss and family trouble were all well-written and emotionally impactful. But I wouldn't recommend it as good trans rep, and really wish I could, because I desperately want to see more trans people being loved in YA. Thankfully, more and more own voices novels are coming out, so we have that to look forward to.