this is a book where basically every character is extremely flawed. tara is just trying to live her life, but she also tends to be a judgemental jerk (especially towards her transmasc friend, liam). her parents ultimately accept her, but they pick and choose throughout when they will and won’t acknowledge that she is a girl. liam is doing what he believes is right, but crosses tara’s boundaries several times. the list goes on.
and i think it could’ve been done extremely well if it felt like there was a point to it. basically every character at one point is either being transphobic, racist or both towards tara, with a lot of it going wildly unchallenged (seriously there is no one truly in her corner). eventually it just becomes an exhausting read, and im not normally a “but think of the children” type of guy but i worry a little that young trans teens’s takeaway from this book will be that “life sucks if youre trans and no one will really defend you and be kind to you” (ik that wouldve been my takeaway even just a few years ago).
also theres one specific section soon after liam is introduced where tara begins lingering on her belief that liam would’ve made a pretty girl, and reading that as a trans guy,,,, ow. did not like that section at all. i get how maybe some people could think like that but it really just sucked to have to read it.
authors note was nonetheless incredible, hence the .5 star. i just wish the rest of the book had been like that.