A review by tbrnichols
Any Other City by Hazel Jane Plante

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

5.0

Really enjoyed the contrasts between the two parts in both substance and tone. The first part felt a lot more like Tracy is an observer to profound and glamorous things while the second feels much more lived in, like experiences that define the day to day, rather than a shock that threatens to shatter the system. That contrast rang quite true for me in that the before transition times seem to only be recalled when gender was drawn to the surface whereas after transition, every day life seems real and memorable for Tracy. And I found the second part to be a nice antidote to the feelings of inadequacy that the first arose in me, but the second part reminds that the banal experiences of queer life can be beautiful in their banality. And that queer joy has value regardless of it's profundity or the ways in which it gets channeled for art. 

I do find the tendency to reference both real and fake cultural works to be a bit distracting? Like that there's a subgame of reading the book of trying to guess which allusions are real and you should go listen to/watch/read them and which aren't so you shouldn't waste your time looking them up is a bit annoying to me. 
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