A review by bacteriosage
Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

0.5

not sure if i want to put the energy into writing an actual review of this book because i already put enough energy into finishing it, but i truly think that was the worst book i’ve read to date. it felt deeply lesbophobic, and incredibly reductive in its portrayal of transness. about a quarter into the book i just gave the author the benefit of the doubt and read as though all the problematic stuff was solely a result of the characters being frankly awful people, but there are too many stereotypes and clear biases of the author within the metanarrative for that to make sense. and at one point the main character Sol does address how his love interest is toxic in a lot of ways and fetishizes him, but the literal one paragraph that discusses that seems to just conclude “well i’m codependent and in love with them so it’s okay.” the relationship itself also felt very insta-lovey and comprised of primarily trauma-bonding, and the sex scenes were incredibly uncomfortable to read imo (also lots of scenes and phrases that just. don’t leave room for aro/ace people to exist in this fictional world much, if at all). again, if there were some explanation for this in the broader context of the work i would love to hear it, i’m not expecting the book to tell me that “problematic characters are problematic” or hold my hand through figuring out what’s homophobic/transphobic or not, but as far as i can figure there was no larger message or meaning that gave me any explanation for that. 

the last thing i’ll say is HOWWW are these characters in their FORTIES???? they read like teenagers steeped in the deepest trenches of tumblr discourse. almost DNF’d at finding out the love interest works for AO3, then again with supernatural fanfic jokes, then again with an “assigned cop at birth” joke. admittedly i don’t tend to enjoy when books date themselves, just a personal preference, but i absolutely loved tamsyn muir’s pop culture references in tlt — this felt like a horribly ham-fisted version of that.

maybe i will try to put together a more coherent review later because i think what sucks (pun intended) the most is that the concept of a transmasc, vampire archivist is SO COOL and there were even a few pages that connnected those themes in really interesting ways, but the overall thread of them was totally lost in the story as a whole for me and i just felt like i was stuck listening to the two most obnoxious characters on earth talk ad nauseum and still say absolutely nothing. i couldn’t even tell the difference in character voices honestly, they all just felt like different vessels for the author because they all speak the same. i don’t think i’ve ever finished a book so quickly just because i needed it to be over.

okay TRULY the last thing i’ll say but there was absolutely no trans joy in this book that was not in some way connected to dysphoria, and i think we deserve better than that, especially when the book is written by a trans author. 
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