I'm opting not to rate this one, because I'm uncomfortable further lowering the rating on an own voices novel by a trans woman of colour, especially as so many of the existing 1 star ratings are from people that haven't read the book. That said, I had a number of issues with this book, and I'm not sure how to articulate them.

The writing and editing, first and foremost, were really, really bad. Just objectively not good. Whole conversations were summarised by 'he told me about x and then I said y and he laughed and he told me more about x'. Why not just use dialogue instead of summaries? It meant that the characters often came off as very distant; I didn't feel like I knew anything about a single one of them. If you were to do a Search for the word 'uhh' in this book, it would break your Kindle. There were five on one page. There were typos aplenty, and whole paragraphs that didn't make sense on a continuity level (characters being specifically summoned away from other characters, then suddenly being in a group with them, etc). On that level alone, this book was not ready to be published. It just wasn't. It clearly needed at least another two rounds of edits and another copy pass.

The characters were also not good. I don't mind unlikable characters, but characters need to be interesting, and no-one here was. The two redeeming characters were Dave and Hen, who both had actual personalities, and everyone else was weirdly obsessed with power and dominance, with leaders and followers. It was super bizarre to read a book from the POV of a teenage boy who is absolutely hyperfocused on power and hierarchy. All he (and a few of his friends) can talk about is whether or not someone is dominant in a conversation, or how much social power they have, or how he can get more social power - it's like reading werewolf fic. None of it rang true. No teenage girl has ever mournfully recalled the previous year and said 'I had so much power,' unless they're secretly an evil fairytale queen in disguise. It's one of the most bizarre dynamics I've ever read in my entire life.

The final trivial point is the main character's questioning rep. Now, a lot of the previous 1 star reviews have focused on how offensive his character is, namely because he's obsessed with being 'normal' and sometimes alludes to his own fear that he only wants to be queer so that he can be popular. I actually didn't mind that. Sure, I don't agree with it, but I don't think we have to agree with characters all the time. A lot of what he said was offensive and he isn't called out on it, but that isn't something that makes me dislike a book. However, there was no continuity in his questioning. He literally goes from wanting to jump a guy's bones on one page to being 'repulsed' by him the next, and he seems equally blasé about both feelings. He hardly questions himself at all, beyond occasionally wondering what his own motives are. He doesn't pay much attention to what his own feelings are; they just flip flop around and he accepts them however they are. That doesn't make for a satisfying narrative; you never get the sense of a journey of acceptance.

The main issue I had with this book, and the main reason I'm not going to rate it low despite the above problems, is that I think this is really a very interesting book about a trans girl, and it isn't presented that way at all. I'll use he/him pronouns for Nandan in this review, because those are his pronouns in the book, but I feel a little uncomfortable with it. The author has said that this is an incredibly personal book, and she's a trans woman (she came out after this book was already in the publishing process) and even without knowing that, this book reminded me of Imogen Binnie's Nevada and Casey Plett's Little Fish (neither of which are YA books!) in the way Nandan's self-identity is presented. He constantly talks about wanting to be part of his ex-girlfriend's group of female friends. She tells him that he always wants to join in with their 'girly activities' like putting on makeup and having sleepovers. When he's having sex, he has to picture himself as his ex-girlfriend so that he can enjoy it. The reason that it never seems like Nandan is actually questioning his sexuality, in my mind, is that he's actually questioning his gender. That's why the questioning rep here doesn't fit; it's presented as though he's questioning something else entirely. It feels like the book was written at the wrong time (by which I mean that the author wrote and published it before coming out; her photo at the back of the book is very outdated and the wrong pronouns are used) and I think the book suffers for it.

I wonder what this book would have been if the author had written it a year later and after another heavy round of edits. I suspect it would have been a lot better. There's a gem of a book in here, and it's a real shame that this isn't it.