Scan barcode
A review by meganmilks
Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin
3.0
the premise is rich for exploring gender from a teen girl's perspective -- the author creates a second character out of a 17-year-old's premenstrual hormones - the protagonist, jill, is transformed by mysterious processes into her male counterpart, jack, for five days out of the month, until the egg drops and she's "all girl" again.
jill bounces back and forth between two powerful forces in her life -- her conservative, antifeminist mother and her empowered, feminist best friend. ultimately her mother wins out, and jill reacts to her mom's stifling notions of ideal femininity by splitting in two -- she can't deal with the masculine aspects of herself and so turns into a dude, because dudes can be hormone-driven and dudettes cannot.
interesting idea, but never reaches the synthesis of the gender binary it produces, even as the narrative gestures towards challenging that binary; moreover, the concept itself is fairly problematic from a queer/trans perspective. still, an unusual book that left us (book club) with much to discuss. and i do yes want to read (re)cycler.
jill bounces back and forth between two powerful forces in her life -- her conservative, antifeminist mother and her empowered, feminist best friend. ultimately her mother wins out, and jill reacts to her mom's stifling notions of ideal femininity by splitting in two -- she can't deal with the masculine aspects of herself and so turns into a dude, because dudes can be hormone-driven and dudettes cannot.
interesting idea, but never reaches the synthesis of the gender binary it produces, even as the narrative gestures towards challenging that binary; moreover, the concept itself is fairly problematic from a queer/trans perspective. still, an unusual book that left us (book club) with much to discuss. and i do yes want to read (re)cycler.