meijerdp 's review for:

What We Left Behind by Robin Talley

4.0

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3,5*

I enjoyed this, I have some feelings about this book, but I also can't completely judge this book as a cis lesbian. I've personally thought for a while I was genderqueer myself but in the end I realized I wasn't. So I understood the struggle of Toni a little bit. I really liked that both main characters were flawed, I really liked Gretchen and had trouble really liking Toni. I found him incredibly selfish and self centered, yes it's hard to figure yourself out but shutting out your girlfriend and then being mad at her just isn't fair. Basically I was frustrated with that a lot.

I did like that this book was so diverse, trans characters, lesbians, poc, we need more of that in books. I really did enjoy the story and would recommend for people to read this, it just wasn't perfect. I want to talk about the thing that angered me the most and that was that Gretchen slept with Carell, stop making lesbians sleep with men for shock effect. It happens too often and just no, she's a lesbian, do not let her drunklingly sleep with a male, especially not a gay one. I found it a terrible mistake and just really felt myself being very angry. Overall a good read though, I'm glad this book is out here and tried to tackle these subjects.