I have a lot of feelings right now and ask that you respect my privacy, as I have been WRECKED by this book.

Let me not mince words here ya’ll: I FUCKING LOVED THIS BOOK!! That’s it, that’s all, everyone go home and get this book immediately okay. There’s nothing else left to say.

Okay….maybe I have a little bit more to say.

Kacen Callendar created a beautiful story here and it touched me in more ways than one. From the very first page of this book, I felt fiercely protective of Felix. He’s in an environment where he doesn’t exactly feel like he fits in. Yes he has an amazing best friend (hello Ezra!), but he certainly doesn’t have money like the rest of the kids in his summer program. He spends most of his time at Ezra’s apartment because traveling back and forth from his father’s apartment is not only a draining journey, but also not necessarily the best environment since his mother abandoned him and his father is still having trouble acknowledging Felix’s identity as a trans boy. On top of his troubles at home, Felix is dealing with questioning his identity again, after thinking he had all of this figured out. To make matters worse, though Felix doesn’t hide his trans identity, he’s outed at the summer program when someone puts up a gallery of him after hacking into his old pictures before he transitioned and deadnaming him. Felix is determined to get to the bottom of who outed him and he’s already convinced he knows who it is. Is it really so difficult for Felix to find his happily ever after? Or is he truly unlovable even though his last name is Love?

This….this is such a beautifully written book. Let me say that this is not an #ownvoices review, as I am not transgender, non-binary or gay, but as a black reviewer, it felt so important to me that this story looked at intersectionality. Too often we as black people are forced to pick ONE identity that’s important. Either you’re black or trans or gay or a woman or a man or non-binary. It’s like you can only pick one struggle at a time and that’s just now true. Intersectionality is real and the world needs to start acknowledging it. Felix struggles come from each of his identities and to ignore one is to ignore him as a person. I’ve seen so many people say this is such an important story for the Trans and Non-Binary community and I 100% agree. Being able to see yourself in a story and identify with the characters is an amazing experience. We say all the time that you don’t need anyone to validate your identity and yet, it feels amazing to see yourself in a character because it indeed makes you feel like you are valid. Your struggles are valid. Your feelings are valid. YOUR ENTIRE PERSON IS VALID.

On top of this amazing journey that this book takes you on, you meet some amazing characters. Felix captured my heart immediately. I not only wanted to protect him, but I wanted to love him, encourage him and just watch him grow. Ezra, was equally amazing. He has such fun chaotic energy, so you know he’d be amazing to go out with, but he was a fiercely loyal friend who was there for Felix no matter what. They had their struggles later in the book, but overall, I don’t think there was a better friend than Ezra. He defended Felix, no questions asked.

Not all of the characters were great, but that was on purpose. Some of these characters are going to make you want to strangle them and you know what, go right ahead. It’s true to life because there are some real ignorant assholes in the world. Even still, this book was not about pain for the sake of pain. It was a coming of age story for an extraordinary person that wasn’t steeped in pain, but still showed a very real struggle. Everyone deserves to have this sort of story told.

Okay, that’s it, I’m done because if I say anything else, I’m going to spoil the book. In case this was too long, here’s the gist:

TL;DR: READ THIS DAMN BOOK IMMEDIATELY.