Scan barcode
A review by teyn
My Brother's Name is Jessica by John Boyne
1.0
Bleurgh... No. Vomit worthy.
The first two chapters were so cute, and I expected the deadnaming to end as soon as Jessica came out. I wanted this to be a book about redefining a sibling relationship on new terms with growth and mutual support. I'm genderfluid myself and am still referred to by a gendered sibling title that has always been a part of my identity, and so I was hoping for at least a semblance of representation.
Instead, it was the clumsy imitation of some perverse transphobic narrative. The few characters I actually liked, including Jessica herself, were barely in the book. So, this ended up just being a bunch of cis people whining about a trans teenager's struggle's effects on their lives (with a nonsensical heteronormative romance subplot, because why not mess this up even more?). Not to mention the cringeworthy afterword where the author tries to convince us he's qualified to write about these topics because he "always felt different" as a cisgender, gay man. F that. F this book. I really did try to give it a shot, but no.
Thank goodness I got this for free through the library or I would be so mad to have given any money for this crap.
The first two chapters were so cute, and I expected the deadnaming to end as soon as Jessica came out. I wanted this to be a book about redefining a sibling relationship on new terms with growth and mutual support. I'm genderfluid myself and am still referred to by a gendered sibling title that has always been a part of my identity, and so I was hoping for at least a semblance of representation.
Instead, it was the clumsy imitation of some perverse transphobic narrative. The few characters I actually liked, including Jessica herself, were barely in the book. So, this ended up just being a bunch of cis people whining about a trans teenager's struggle's effects on their lives (with a nonsensical heteronormative romance subplot, because why not mess this up even more?). Not to mention the cringeworthy afterword where the author tries to convince us he's qualified to write about these topics because he "always felt different" as a cisgender, gay man. F that. F this book. I really did try to give it a shot, but no.
Thank goodness I got this for free through the library or I would be so mad to have given any money for this crap.