A review by madarauchiha
Runtime by S.B. Divya

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.25

 โค๏ธ ๐Ÿงก ๐Ÿ’› ๐Ÿ’š ๐Ÿ’™ ๐Ÿ’œ  my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara ๐Ÿ’œ ๐Ÿ’™ ๐Ÿ’š ๐Ÿ’› ๐Ÿงก โค๏ธ

I'm nonbinary transmisogy exempt asian american and I have a lot of problems with this story. The author conflates gender identity with physical body parts. For a person to be transgender you simply need to identify as transgender. That's it. You don't need to start dressing differently, have surgery, take hormones, change your name, change your pronouns, etc etc. To require any of this for a trans person to be 'legitimately trans' is transphobic and transmisogyny. We don't need to pass as one of the two cis genders or the bizarre, third 'androgynous' nonbinary gender to be transgender.

There's also the issue of how far does this 'moot surgery' go. Does the author think every person should also get de-racialization surgery? She seems to imply via the transphobic character [the first mountain mike] that trans 'moot' people get surgeries to have a uniform, generic look. This is some fucked up racist sentiment. I also venture that it's deeply antiblack as I assume the 'generic moot' appearance that people are getting does not include Black / African features. Specifically that it's also erasing Black / African features to achieve... I'm not entirely sure what the most legitimate racial features they are aiming for, but I will assume white european. 

I guess the class structure is interesting in the story. It's essentially USAmerica, except with the details fudged. 

I don't know. It's a short story, the author gets a shit ton wrong about gender and is accidentaly(?) racist and transphobic all over the place. Take out the transgender parts for a second. What you have is a story about a impoverished not Nth class Filipino american who enters a marathon to show off body mods and get a big cash payout in order to move up in the world. Welp. It was well written, well edited. I think it had a fairly thought out plot and used characters well. I guess.

I started this book hopeful when I saw there was a Filipino protagonist and ended repulsed and soured on the author and the book. I've only read 'loss of signal' an ableist 'fix the cr*pple' short story, and 'machinehood'. The second book had a fantastic, interesting plot. I thought the MC was an uncomfortably pro military character however. But that's beside the point in that I'm not sure how to divide the fictional plot from the author's personal opinions and politics infesting her works. 

Content warnings: 
major classism, xenophobia, blood, gore, child abuse, physical abuse, violence, body horror, medical content transphobia, misgendering, 



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