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vagaybond 's review for:
May the Best Man Win
by Z.R. Ellor
god this was SO MESSY
I'll admit I was torn about maybe giving it more stars, because I feel like it wrapped up pretty nicely for what it was, and finishing a book always feels a little better than actually reading it. But I think this one needed more to actually make it enjoyable as a reader. And the characters are just... a little too messy in ways that are entirely their fault. There's character growth but only in the protagonists. Not with any side characters. They really weren't explored much.
All of these fictional characters need some therapy
The high school setting felt very high school musical/glee in terms of social division. And it felt like the author was trying to fit in a little bit of every kind of transphobic microaggression someone could face. Like, I am trans, and I have faced all of the things mentioned in the story and worse. And I can get why, as a trans author, someone would want to fit those things in. But it doesn't feel fair as a trans reader.
There's a lot of fixation on Jeremy's relationship to trans identity which I think is totally normal and does deserve to be explored to the degree it is. But I still feel like some sort of conclusion could be made about it that's a bit cleaner. But I'm also coming at this with the bias of someone who is 27, came out at 16, and has mostly other trans friends. So I don't know. That may be a Me Thing and just getting to be comfortable in myself because I have access to community in ways that Jeremy doesn't. (For that matter, it seems pretty weird that his GSA was his only trans community connection. But it also makes sense, considering how shitty his views are in the first place.)
Other people have mentioned the issues with calling TERFs mostly lesbians so I won't add on to that other than to say the majority of TERFs are straight white women who have never actually met a trans person before. This "mostly lesbians" thing isn't accurate obviously, but I know teenagers are misinformed. I just would have liked if that were acknowledged.
Also seemed weird to me that white characters never acknowledged their whiteness, for that matter. They seemed to be able to make an offhand comment critiquing old white men or whatever but they didn't actually ever acknowledge that whiteness comes into the picture for things.
There's also a lot here that makes it clear that it was written by a TME person. Stuff about male privilege and getting defensive about ~knowing the experiences of being a woman~ when the reality is much more complicated. There was some nuance gone into, but not enough IMO.
I feel like this book was very much just punching above its weight class in terms of topics. It was definitely better than something a cis person would normally write on the matter, but it does feel like the author could have used sensitivity readers from within the same community.
For example, there was a "half trans" comment about nonbinary people - it was used to describe the perspective of a transphobic person who wanted Jeremy to be nonbinary instead of a trans man but it was still gross.
I know I could write a bigger review on this but I just don't have it in me. This book took a lot out of me
I'll admit I was torn about maybe giving it more stars, because I feel like it wrapped up pretty nicely for what it was, and finishing a book always feels a little better than actually reading it. But I think this one needed more to actually make it enjoyable as a reader. And the characters are just... a little too messy in ways that are entirely their fault. There's character growth but only in the protagonists. Not with any side characters. They really weren't explored much.
All of these fictional characters need some therapy
The high school setting felt very high school musical/glee in terms of social division. And it felt like the author was trying to fit in a little bit of every kind of transphobic microaggression someone could face. Like, I am trans, and I have faced all of the things mentioned in the story and worse. And I can get why, as a trans author, someone would want to fit those things in. But it doesn't feel fair as a trans reader.
There's a lot of fixation on Jeremy's relationship to trans identity which I think is totally normal and does deserve to be explored to the degree it is. But I still feel like some sort of conclusion could be made about it that's a bit cleaner. But I'm also coming at this with the bias of someone who is 27, came out at 16, and has mostly other trans friends. So I don't know. That may be a Me Thing and just getting to be comfortable in myself because I have access to community in ways that Jeremy doesn't. (For that matter, it seems pretty weird that his GSA was his only trans community connection. But it also makes sense, considering how shitty his views are in the first place.)
Other people have mentioned the issues with calling TERFs mostly lesbians so I won't add on to that other than to say the majority of TERFs are straight white women who have never actually met a trans person before. This "mostly lesbians" thing isn't accurate obviously, but I know teenagers are misinformed. I just would have liked if that were acknowledged.
Also seemed weird to me that white characters never acknowledged their whiteness, for that matter. They seemed to be able to make an offhand comment critiquing old white men or whatever but they didn't actually ever acknowledge that whiteness comes into the picture for things.
There's also a lot here that makes it clear that it was written by a TME person. Stuff about male privilege and getting defensive about ~knowing the experiences of being a woman~ when the reality is much more complicated. There was some nuance gone into, but not enough IMO.
I feel like this book was very much just punching above its weight class in terms of topics. It was definitely better than something a cis person would normally write on the matter, but it does feel like the author could have used sensitivity readers from within the same community.
For example, there was a "half trans" comment about nonbinary people - it was used to describe the perspective of a transphobic person who wanted Jeremy to be nonbinary instead of a trans man but it was still gross.
I know I could write a bigger review on this but I just don't have it in me. This book took a lot out of me