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A review by readershark
The Madness Blooms (unpublished) by Mackenzi Lee
1.0
I'm usually not one to do this. Actually am never one to do this, but I have strong strong opinions about this book. As a reviewer, as a transman, as a bisexual person, this book rubs me the wrong damn way. When I first heard about this book, it was literally marketed, by the marketing team, as a F/F romance. Which is great! I love that so much! Little do I know, I've come to find out this book is using being trans as a shock value, and from the reviews, it's demeaning, using outdated and traumatic trans tropes, has the bury your gay trope, and also gay men are predator tropes, and most unshockingly of all, it is not own voices. Stop. If you are not trans, there's zero reason to be writing a trans coming out story when actual trans people are being pushed out of the publishing industry. This review isn't about that, but maybe stop killing us long enough so we can write our stories and get them out there in more formats than just a tragedy.
ANYWAY, more importantly, I had email correspondence with Lee after the instagram drop of this book. We had two back and forth, which unfortunately, have been deleted from my email archives. I don't have receipts but I remember what was said. She invited anyone who was upset to email her, so I did, saying I was upset about the misgendering, deadnaming, and mismarketing. Lee replied less than twenty minutes later apologizing and then refusing to take any of the blame. It was her marketing team, her publisher, it was out of her hands. Which I call fucking bullshit on, but either way, it wasn't her fault.
It was frustrating and incredibly disheartening. Just write a F/F romance. If you're gonna market this, misgender and traumatize your own trans character just for the sake of "historical accuracy," then it could easily be a lesbian or wlw story, something that Lee actually fucking is. So. There's that, too.
I won't be reading this book and I hope all of this commentary makes both the publishing team and Mackenzi Lee take a good hard look at how transgender characters should be handled, and why transgender people should have the chance to write them first.
ANYWAY, more importantly, I had email correspondence with Lee after the instagram drop of this book. We had two back and forth, which unfortunately, have been deleted from my email archives. I don't have receipts but I remember what was said. She invited anyone who was upset to email her, so I did, saying I was upset about the misgendering, deadnaming, and mismarketing. Lee replied less than twenty minutes later apologizing and then refusing to take any of the blame. It was her marketing team, her publisher, it was out of her hands. Which I call fucking bullshit on, but either way, it wasn't her fault.
It was frustrating and incredibly disheartening. Just write a F/F romance. If you're gonna market this, misgender and traumatize your own trans character just for the sake of "historical accuracy," then it could easily be a lesbian or wlw story, something that Lee actually fucking is. So. There's that, too.
I won't be reading this book and I hope all of this commentary makes both the publishing team and Mackenzi Lee take a good hard look at how transgender characters should be handled, and why transgender people should have the chance to write them first.