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A review by cosmo_junk
My Brother's Name is Jessica by John Boyne
1.0
tw transphobia, homophobia, violence, cis ppl writing trans characters
i picked this up thinking it was going to be a cute read. ohhh no. let's get a few things straight. john boyne is a cis man, writing a book in the pov of a cis boy about a trans girl. and this book is infuriating in many ways:
- the misgendering and deadnaming in the title and blurb
- it concerns the CIS BOY's emotions over than the TRANS GIRL whom he traumatizes
- nobody accepts jessica until THE VERY LAST CHAPTER when she's at her absolute low point. is this the inspirational messaging you want your young trans girls to internalize?
- author seems to think saying slurs just because is the #1 Most Transphobic thing you can do
- sam calls jessica "my brother jason" every other sentence. like, EVERY other sentence.
- jessica is strangely passive when she faces transphobia. she kinda waits quietly until it stops. maybe she's just shy, except we don't know anything about her character bc this book was written in the perspective of an outsider and provides ZERO sympathy for her
- makes it look so easy for trans people to get hormones. jessica starts estrogen only a few months after the end of the book
- unnecessary romantic subplot bc filler i guess?
- sam is so mean abt her being trans, he frequently says/thinks things like "if they go to hogwarts, maybe he can magic [jessica] back to normal" and he said to their aunt "i bet you told him it was okay to be a girl." i know when you want young transphobic kids to relate to your character, it helps to meet them where they're at, but this is just horrendous. sam doesn't even (outright) feel a little shame at the gross things he's thought about jessica. so it's ok to hate your trans sister, as long as you don't cut her hair?
- jessica is pretty sure she is a girl early on, and is positive that she doesn't like boys (says she's "not gay"), so why was she confused when sam brought up that she might be "a gay girl"? maybe she was ashamed or unsure of her own identity as a girl, and therefore felt uncomfortable calling herself a lesbian, which would've been an amazing subplot! but no
TL;DR: i can't imagine any trans person reading this and feeling good, since sam is such an asshole until the very last chapter. it seems very pandering to cis ppl and fails to portray a trans experience. so maybe trans people were not the target audience after all.
i picked this up thinking it was going to be a cute read. ohhh no. let's get a few things straight. john boyne is a cis man, writing a book in the pov of a cis boy about a trans girl. and this book is infuriating in many ways:
- the misgendering and deadnaming in the title and blurb
- it concerns the CIS BOY's emotions over than the TRANS GIRL whom he traumatizes
- nobody accepts jessica until THE VERY LAST CHAPTER when she's at her absolute low point. is this the inspirational messaging you want your young trans girls to internalize?
- author seems to think saying slurs just because is the #1 Most Transphobic thing you can do
- sam calls jessica "my brother jason" every other sentence. like, EVERY other sentence.
- jessica is strangely passive when she faces transphobia. she kinda waits quietly until it stops. maybe she's just shy, except we don't know anything about her character bc this book was written in the perspective of an outsider and provides ZERO sympathy for her
- makes it look so easy for trans people to get hormones. jessica starts estrogen only a few months after the end of the book
- unnecessary romantic subplot bc filler i guess?
- sam is so mean abt her being trans, he frequently says/thinks things like "if they go to hogwarts, maybe he can magic [jessica] back to normal" and he said to their aunt "i bet you told him it was okay to be a girl." i know when you want young transphobic kids to relate to your character, it helps to meet them where they're at, but this is just horrendous. sam doesn't even (outright) feel a little shame at the gross things he's thought about jessica. so it's ok to hate your trans sister, as long as you don't cut her hair?
- jessica is pretty sure she is a girl early on, and is positive that she doesn't like boys (says she's "not gay"), so why was she confused when sam brought up that she might be "a gay girl"? maybe she was ashamed or unsure of her own identity as a girl, and therefore felt uncomfortable calling herself a lesbian, which would've been an amazing subplot! but no
TL;DR: i can't imagine any trans person reading this and feeling good, since sam is such an asshole until the very last chapter. it seems very pandering to cis ppl and fails to portray a trans experience. so maybe trans people were not the target audience after all.