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shane_the_reading_rat 's review for:

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman
1.0
man somehow this book managed to be both really weirdly lesbophobic and transphobic at the same time. i’d give a more detailed review, but once i reached the weird portions i turned this to the highest speed i could manage, then played tetris a lot until it was done. so here are some bullet points:
  • the d slur did not need to be used at all in this, yet it was used so many times (usually to describe women). first time it happened i kinda just was very 😳, surprised and all, then it just kept continually happening. not great. if this is how Sol thinks about the people in his life, he’s not a character i could ever root for.
  • it takes Sol way too long to realize that
    yes, leaving your packer on your desk in plain view of your coworkers is shitty and will get you in trouble with your job for good reason. 1, it’s gross, 2, just really weird to make others see that.
  • every butch in this book is either really transphobic, secretly a trans guy, or both, and it was super weird. ick. just bad bad vibes.
  • i just dont like instalove
  • the love interest very much fetishizes the fact that sol is a trans guy (without that fetishization being opposed at all ever) and like being a trans guy myself that felt especially weird to listen to. also just plain ick
  • the vampire stuff was interesting enough? but it genuinely did not need to be in the book. if you removed all the vampire shit this would straight up be the same story. and if it’s supposed to be a big metaphor for transness (which is how i was reading it) thats all fine and dandy but just doesnt make sense when Sol being trans is already a massive part of the story???
  • just generally despised this honestly. glad it was short
  • forgot to mention this originally but we find out Sol’s deadname + the love interest went out of their way to find his deadname and it both 1: made me mad 2: made me mad that Sol wasn’t telling them that that was really awful. deadnaming is really really shitty and yeah i hate this book so much
  • theres more transphobia but i just dont have the energy to cover it all. i hate this book actually it is my least favorite of this year and probably ever by a landslide
  • an addition: else being like “yeah i was just in a car crash bad enough that the hospital is keeping me for a few days but you gotta bang me rn in this hospital room!!!” will forever be so funny to me. like My Sibling In Christ you do not need to get off that badly calm down