Scan barcode
A review by sparky_young_upstart
Bad Boy by Elliot Wake
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
DISCLAIMER: I'm agender, so while I'm not cis I'm also not trans and have no plans on making any sort of transition.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. For the first two thirds of it I was basically reading it to confirm what I'd already decided about it. The ending managed to surprise me a little, but after I let it simmer I still ended up on the side of "no".
One issue I had for most of this book is that for such a queer book it has a rather binary view of gender and gender issues. For the first two thirds it's quite in the vein of "Men are X, Women are Y". Men are hard and women are soft. Men are paranoid and women are trusting. Men are cruel and women are kind. Now this kind of thinking is mostly taken apart by the end but there are still elements that remain - the softness compared to hardness. The female characters of the book always have such frail and delicate bodies compared to the yolked men; all their strength is in their minds and manipulations - such a high school way of thinking of things. The worst parts are when Ren tells the audience about all the biological reasons that men are different - and not just that, but dangerously different - from women. Again I can't speak from experience but I do know that biology is one of the first things TERFs jump on to prove that trans people and gender dysphoria is a scam or whatever. I was pretty surprised to hear such statements coming out of a book where the entire premise hinges on the fact that TERFs are bad.
There's also the character of Ellis, who is stated to be genderqueer early on but is exclusively referred to with she/her pronouns. Now I probably don't know the full story. I only recently learned that this is the latest in a series of books by the same author and that Ellis is introduced in an earlier novel - maybe there's a reason why she uses those pronouns that's stated there. I also feel like she's another vessel for the author just as Ren was here, judging by the acknowledgements. But it was kind of jarring for her to not use they/them or any neopronouns in the story. There's also a passage (P. 101) involving her that I found very out of place, where Ren starts to wonder if she's trying to appear more masculine and regrets being a "bad influence" on her. I'm probably reading way too much into it and doing so incorrectly but it made me a little uncomfortable because it falls a little bit into a trans regret narrative, and it's rather incongruous with the rest of the book.
In fact there's a lot in the tone of this book that caused me to feel uneasy during it. Ren has a lot of internalized misandry because of his transition, and I can understand now that the goal was to push through it and reach the next stage of self-acceptance, but there are times where the loathing is so strong that I was worried it could potentially trigger (and I mean that in the actual sense) some trans male readers. Now I can't say for a fact that that'd be the response for everyone, because there are probably plenty of other trans male readers who would see all of this and see themselves reflected near-perfectly. Transitioning is different for everyone, being queer in the world is different for everyone, but seeing the sum-total of all your fears stare at you dead to rights has just as much potential to be terrifying as it is to be liberating.
Maybe part of it is because of Ren's roommate, Ingrid. For a good chunk of the book you're lead to believe that Ingrid is a good person and Ren's friend. The problem is that Ingrid is a TERF. And it's not subtle about that. And yet...she's framed in such a way that you spend the whole book thinking "she's misguided", "she's problematic but still cares about Ren", "she'll learn to be better by the end!" Does she? Well...the details are spoilers so I'll get into that into a moment.
If you want to experience this book for yourself I leave you with this: It might be worth reading the whole way through, but if you're unsure about your gender stuff, are a trans guy dealing with internalized transmisandry, or have simply had bad experiences with TERFs and their thought process, then brace yourself because there are parts of this book with the potential to mess you up.
HERE ARE THE SPOILERS
On the one hand, as I mentioned, I'm glad the ending does get away from the more binary thinking of the first parts. It accepts that men can be just as victimized as women, and women can be just as cruel as men. But the more I thought about the rest of it, the more it fell apart.
Now, Ingrid. She does not get better! She's a TERF through and through! And we land in a situation where by the end of the book you realize that you've been throwing your lot in with a TERF and it leaves you with this weird feeling of unease. And yes, that's probably how Ren feels too, but it would've been better if it had been a real twist, a true discovery of her evilness, rather than just confirming what we already know and going "hah, told you so". I would've preferred her to masquerade as an ally. It would be harsher to find out, yes, but narratively it would make more sense and it would mean we weren't investing time in her hoping for her to turn out better.
What gets me even worse, somehow, is the rest of Black Iris. Because I can't let them escape blame either. Ingrid is a single terrible person, but Black Iris are a concerted group of terrible people. While Ren talks about how Ingrid is gaslighting him, not even the narrative acknowledges that Black Iris did the same. They convinced him that his rapist wasn't in town, then aligned with him - to save him, sure, but it was still behind his back. They lied to his face about threats to his life and livelihood, even when they knew he was in a situation where he was already paranoid and thinking the worst of them. They do all of this under the pretense of protecting him, but in the end it really feels like Black Iris is just letting Ingrid toy with Ren's emotions and potentially damage his reputation beyond repair until they can swoop in, act the hero, and create the most dramatic ending they see fit. And then we get a happy ending slapped on that never considers this, considers the lies and the misdirection that put him in the crosshairs of trauma, and just has Ren being happy with so-called friends.
It's hard for me to give this book 2 stars because it's clearly very personal to the author and has a lot of his story and frustrations being vented to the universe through Ren. But I feel like their are too many elements, especially the ending, that undermine what the story is trying to say. If it was a longer book, if it delved into the betrayal of all parties more, maybe I'd like it more. But that ending just lands the wrong way for me.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. For the first two thirds of it I was basically reading it to confirm what I'd already decided about it. The ending managed to surprise me a little, but after I let it simmer I still ended up on the side of "no".
One issue I had for most of this book is that for such a queer book it has a rather binary view of gender and gender issues. For the first two thirds it's quite in the vein of "Men are X, Women are Y". Men are hard and women are soft. Men are paranoid and women are trusting. Men are cruel and women are kind. Now this kind of thinking is mostly taken apart by the end but there are still elements that remain - the softness compared to hardness. The female characters of the book always have such frail and delicate bodies compared to the yolked men; all their strength is in their minds and manipulations - such a high school way of thinking of things. The worst parts are when Ren tells the audience about all the biological reasons that men are different - and not just that, but dangerously different - from women. Again I can't speak from experience but I do know that biology is one of the first things TERFs jump on to prove that trans people and gender dysphoria is a scam or whatever. I was pretty surprised to hear such statements coming out of a book where the entire premise hinges on the fact that TERFs are bad.
There's also the character of Ellis, who is stated to be genderqueer early on but is exclusively referred to with she/her pronouns. Now I probably don't know the full story. I only recently learned that this is the latest in a series of books by the same author and that Ellis is introduced in an earlier novel - maybe there's a reason why she uses those pronouns that's stated there. I also feel like she's another vessel for the author just as Ren was here, judging by the acknowledgements. But it was kind of jarring for her to not use they/them or any neopronouns in the story. There's also a passage (P. 101) involving her that I found very out of place, where Ren starts to wonder if she's trying to appear more masculine and regrets being a "bad influence" on her. I'm probably reading way too much into it and doing so incorrectly but it made me a little uncomfortable because it falls a little bit into a trans regret narrative, and it's rather incongruous with the rest of the book.
In fact there's a lot in the tone of this book that caused me to feel uneasy during it. Ren has a lot of internalized misandry because of his transition, and I can understand now that the goal was to push through it and reach the next stage of self-acceptance, but there are times where the loathing is so strong that I was worried it could potentially trigger (and I mean that in the actual sense) some trans male readers. Now I can't say for a fact that that'd be the response for everyone, because there are probably plenty of other trans male readers who would see all of this and see themselves reflected near-perfectly. Transitioning is different for everyone, being queer in the world is different for everyone, but seeing the sum-total of all your fears stare at you dead to rights has just as much potential to be terrifying as it is to be liberating.
Maybe part of it is because of Ren's roommate, Ingrid. For a good chunk of the book you're lead to believe that Ingrid is a good person and Ren's friend. The problem is that Ingrid is a TERF. And it's not subtle about that. And yet...she's framed in such a way that you spend the whole book thinking "she's misguided", "she's problematic but still cares about Ren", "she'll learn to be better by the end!" Does she? Well...the details are spoilers so I'll get into that into a moment.
If you want to experience this book for yourself I leave you with this: It might be worth reading the whole way through, but if you're unsure about your gender stuff, are a trans guy dealing with internalized transmisandry, or have simply had bad experiences with TERFs and their thought process, then brace yourself because there are parts of this book with the potential to mess you up.
HERE ARE THE SPOILERS
On the one hand, as I mentioned, I'm glad the ending does get away from the more binary thinking of the first parts. It accepts that men can be just as victimized as women, and women can be just as cruel as men. But the more I thought about the rest of it, the more it fell apart.
Now, Ingrid. She does not get better! She's a TERF through and through! And we land in a situation where by the end of the book you realize that you've been throwing your lot in with a TERF and it leaves you with this weird feeling of unease. And yes, that's probably how Ren feels too, but it would've been better if it had been a real twist, a true discovery of her evilness, rather than just confirming what we already know and going "hah, told you so". I would've preferred her to masquerade as an ally. It would be harsher to find out, yes, but narratively it would make more sense and it would mean we weren't investing time in her hoping for her to turn out better.
What gets me even worse, somehow, is the rest of Black Iris. Because I can't let them escape blame either. Ingrid is a single terrible person, but Black Iris are a concerted group of terrible people. While Ren talks about how Ingrid is gaslighting him, not even the narrative acknowledges that Black Iris did the same. They convinced him that his rapist wasn't in town, then aligned with him - to save him, sure, but it was still behind his back. They lied to his face about threats to his life and livelihood, even when they knew he was in a situation where he was already paranoid and thinking the worst of them. They do all of this under the pretense of protecting him, but in the end it really feels like Black Iris is just letting Ingrid toy with Ren's emotions and potentially damage his reputation beyond repair until they can swoop in, act the hero, and create the most dramatic ending they see fit. And then we get a happy ending slapped on that never considers this, considers the lies and the misdirection that put him in the crosshairs of trauma, and just has Ren being happy with so-called friends.
It's hard for me to give this book 2 stars because it's clearly very personal to the author and has a lot of his story and frustrations being vented to the universe through Ren. But I feel like their are too many elements, especially the ending, that undermine what the story is trying to say. If it was a longer book, if it delved into the betrayal of all parties more, maybe I'd like it more. But that ending just lands the wrong way for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia and Sexual assault
The main character is subject to gaslighting by all other characters in the novel.