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kyatic's Reviews (974)
Necessary disclaimers here: I don't hate Milo; I feel fairly ambivalently towards him, much the way I feel about particular species of slugs, or about tapioca pudding. I have mixed feelings about issues such as no-platforming; I think it can be both a tool for good and for censorship, depending entirely on the context and the reason. My main problem with Milo's book is not simply that he's right-wing; it's that he doesn't seem to genuinely believe anything he says. I would look upon Milo differently if I thought he were slightly more authentic than the homepage of Fashion Nova. I generally believe it's important to expose yourself to different ideas, even if the end result is just to reiterate why you disagree with them, so the existence of a book which I fundamentally disagree with isn't the issue here. I try to read books that I disagree with fairly regularly in order to better understand, challenge and affirm my own views. The issue is that I think he's hoodwinked people, and I find it very hard to respect that.
There's two things I agree with Milo on. The first is that we should listen to those with whom we disagree; I don't think we can argue against people who have opposing viewpoints to our own if we don't listen to them, because it's rather hard to take down someone's argument if you don't know what that argument actually is, which is why I put myself through reading Milo's entire book, first to blessèd last page. I would rather know what he has to say than not; how else can I be sure that it's all tripe? (Spoiler: it is.)
The second thing that we agree on is that respiration is necessary for life. At least, I assume that we agree on that. I have no idea. Maybe we don't. Maybe Milo would say that's fake news, or Leftist propaganda, or doesn't apply to Muslims.
Anyway, this book is not a manifesto. It is a twatifesto. It is page after page of nonsense claims, either unverified and lacking any kind of citation, or backed up with citations to his own website or other right wing thinkpieces. It can be summed up fairly succinctly as follows: 'I'm really hot', 'here is an unverified statement that I'm going to present as an objective, unbiased fact', 'here is a citation from my own website', 'feminists are ugly and never do the sex thing', 'I'm gay and do the sex thing all the time', and 'I say things just to be controversial, because meaning things is for feminists'. Yes, in one chapter Milo admits that he doesn't actually believe most of what he says, but says it anyway because he enjoys being 'taboo'. Great. Good. Tip top, Milo. No-one's ever been taboo before. Truly transgressive.
And when I say that our Milo is taboo and transgressive, hoo boy! You don't even know the half of it. Did you know that, according to this book, he only calls himself a 'f****t' because it upsets the 'Lefties'? It's like he's never even heard of Queer theory! Now that's transgressive; doing something to piss off an entire group of people and accidentally ending up affirming their entire way of doing things. (Hint to Milo: there's a hell of a lot of queer people who call themselves 'f****ts' in order to reclaim the term of abuse and make it their own, just as with the term 'queer' itself. You having the right to call yourself a term of your own choosing even if others find it derogatory is, in fact, exactly what those dang Lefties want. You want to really get those 'Lefties' all het up? Call yourself a Centrist. That'll do it.)
Perhaps that's being a little mean. After all, Milo really does dive deep into some pretty hefty topics in this weighty work of political nous. Some of the great philosophical questions tackled and, I think you'll agree, answered in this magnum opus include:
- are feminists lying about rape statistics and inflating them to demonise men, or are rape statistics actually incredibly high because of Muslim migration? Well, both, according to Milo. Feminists lie about rape statistics and rape culture doesn't exist, because feminists are all ugly lesbians with cats and they hate men and want them to suffer, and no-one would want to rape them anyway. But also, mass migration of Muslims to the West is causing enormous levels of rape, sometimes organised and planned in advance by groups of Muslim men as a sort of war tactic in order to take over the West through degrading their women. It's Schrodinger's rape, at once a lie when Milo wants to demonise feminists, and an objective fact when he wants to demonise Muslims. And yet Milo says that feminists are the ones who politicise rape! Eesh.
- is online harassment acceptable under the umbrella of 'trolling', i.e. free speech (Milo feels very strongly that trolling people on Twitter is the archetypal example of free speech, rather than, say, political protest) or is the prevalence of online harassment merely an attempt to silence others by crushing dissidents under the weight of Twitter campaigns and hate mobs? Well, both, according to Milo. When people on the Left bombard figures who they believe to be racist / sexist etc with angry tweets or post their personal information online, it's a case of the Left trying to shut down that person's freedom of speech. When Milo's followers send pictures of gorillas to black actresses and post the addresses of prominent feminists online, it's fine, because they have the right to do it, and it's not like it's serious! God, just get over it, guys. Unless you're doing it to a Nazi, in which case you're a disgusting SJW who needs to get off the Internet and have some sex, or something.
- is fake news a tool of the Left or the Right? Well, both, according to Milo. It's the Left who accuse the Right of fake news, because they can't stand the truth that the media outlets of the Right convey, like how Trump didn't mean he actually grabbed women by the pussy, even though he said he grabbed women by the pussy, and so the Left dub it 'fake news' to try and discredit it, and therefore to attempt to discredit the moral, honest Right in general. But also, when the Right call the Left's output 'fake news', that's accurate because the Left writes about Trump in a bad way, which makes it fake. But when the Left say 'fake news', it's wrong, and they made up the term. But the Right can use it. It's all very confusing when you try and parse out the hypocrisy of it all, but essentially, 'fake news' just means 'things that Milo doesn't agree with', which is, of course, the viewpoint of a reasoned intellectual.
- is the alt-right a hate movement full of Nazis, or is it a movement of misunderstood people who are tired of being lectured to by the morality policing Left? Well, both, according to Milo (have you noticed the pattern here yet?) When the alt-right send Nazi rhetoric or photos of swastikas to Jewish people, they're just trolling, and it's an expression of their anger at the status quo, which makes them feel ignored and downtrodden. But also, says Milo, the alt-right movement has been ambushed by Nazis. But they're not all Nazis, Milo says, except for the ones who are. Who are the Nazis, you ask? Who knows. They're there, somewhere, except for when they're not, except for when they are, which they're not. Unless they are, of course. Says Milo.
Milo has marketed this book as being too dangerous for commercial publication. It's just too degenerate for the masses, he says. He tells truths that people don't want to hear, he says. The dull truth is that this book is dangerous on only two levels, and it's not for the reasons Milo claims. Firstly, the entire reason it was dropped and ultimately self published cannot be limited to 'Milo said things about young boys which was too controversial', even if that's the main line that the press coverage of the book has taken. There are clearly other factors at play here, even beyond the genuinely abysmal writing style (which, by-the-by, reads very much like the secret Reddit history of a 15 year old boy who still thinks that the word 'butt' is the pinnacle of comedy), and these more serious issues of publication become clear when you read the text. Which I did. All of it. Every single awful page. Publishing this book would have opened Simon & Schuster up to multiple lawsuits from the people who Milo explicitly slanders, by the very basic legal definition of the term. Many claims he makes here about specific individuals, several of whom are named, are either patently inaccurate or open to dispute, and unverified, and the few claims which are cited use websites like Breitbart or, hilariously, Milo's own tweets. That insubstantial level of verification and subsequent legal threat is, quite simply, not going to fly in a book with the weight of Simon & Schuster's reputation behind it.
The other primary issue with this book is quite simply that the worldwide supply of anti-nausea drugs could never meet the demand, should this book have been allowed to obtain any semblance of a real audience. There's really only so many times one can read a variation on 'I'm hot and like to fuck... transgressively' before needing some industrial grade anti-emetics. Imagine the world health crisis. What if we all cut ourselves on all the edge? What then, Milo? Have you thought about the edge?!
And listen, in all seriousness, I don't think that Milo is evil. I really, genuinely don't. I think he's a narcissistic showoff who craves attention and validation, and I don't think he'd disagree with me on that; I think he'd probably take it as a compliment (which is part of the problem; people who wallow gloriously in the filth of their own worst qualities like they're bathing in champagne are, alas, the people who seem to shape discourse these days, and are at least 60% of the reason so many of us prefer not to engage with people online, and end up building echo chambers.) The validation that Milo seeks, however, is not validation that he is right, or even that he makes sense - he seeks assurance that yes, he is controversial, and yes, he's super duper edgy and taboo, and yes, he makes people angry. He takes people's rage at his poorly researched, inflammatory statements, and he turns it into his armour. It protects him, because if people attack what he says, which by his own admission is not a reflection of his own thought, then they are not attacking him. His ostentatiousness, his courting of controversy, his pseudo-polemicist rants - these protect him. He craves attention because it is diverting. Look at Milo the persona, the public figure, and not at the person, the man behind it all. There is probably a truly hideous self-portrait in his attic which is feeding off his soul as we speak. Milo makes a carapace of this artifice and hides himself within it, because it's the only way he knows to evade real criticism. Milo is not brave; he's afraid, and this book is not the work of a bold, silenced voice who only wants to speak the truth; it is the work of a man terrified to be authentically perceived, a man who shouts loudly about being silenced because he's afraid that no-one will listen to what he actually wants to say, which is 'please, dear God, won't someone just like me.'
This book is disingenuous to the extreme. It reads more as a man trying to convince himself of the arguments that he's making than anything else. I support freedom of speech. I'm glad that we live in a world where we're able to speak openly about what we believe. That said, I support freedom of speech primarily when people have something to say, and honestly, Milo doesn't, and he doesn't even say it - or hide it - well.
There's two things I agree with Milo on. The first is that we should listen to those with whom we disagree; I don't think we can argue against people who have opposing viewpoints to our own if we don't listen to them, because it's rather hard to take down someone's argument if you don't know what that argument actually is, which is why I put myself through reading Milo's entire book, first to blessèd last page. I would rather know what he has to say than not; how else can I be sure that it's all tripe? (Spoiler: it is.)
The second thing that we agree on is that respiration is necessary for life. At least, I assume that we agree on that. I have no idea. Maybe we don't. Maybe Milo would say that's fake news, or Leftist propaganda, or doesn't apply to Muslims.
Anyway, this book is not a manifesto. It is a twatifesto. It is page after page of nonsense claims, either unverified and lacking any kind of citation, or backed up with citations to his own website or other right wing thinkpieces. It can be summed up fairly succinctly as follows: 'I'm really hot', 'here is an unverified statement that I'm going to present as an objective, unbiased fact', 'here is a citation from my own website', 'feminists are ugly and never do the sex thing', 'I'm gay and do the sex thing all the time', and 'I say things just to be controversial, because meaning things is for feminists'. Yes, in one chapter Milo admits that he doesn't actually believe most of what he says, but says it anyway because he enjoys being 'taboo'. Great. Good. Tip top, Milo. No-one's ever been taboo before. Truly transgressive.
And when I say that our Milo is taboo and transgressive, hoo boy! You don't even know the half of it. Did you know that, according to this book, he only calls himself a 'f****t' because it upsets the 'Lefties'? It's like he's never even heard of Queer theory! Now that's transgressive; doing something to piss off an entire group of people and accidentally ending up affirming their entire way of doing things. (Hint to Milo: there's a hell of a lot of queer people who call themselves 'f****ts' in order to reclaim the term of abuse and make it their own, just as with the term 'queer' itself. You having the right to call yourself a term of your own choosing even if others find it derogatory is, in fact, exactly what those dang Lefties want. You want to really get those 'Lefties' all het up? Call yourself a Centrist. That'll do it.)
Perhaps that's being a little mean. After all, Milo really does dive deep into some pretty hefty topics in this weighty work of political nous. Some of the great philosophical questions tackled and, I think you'll agree, answered in this magnum opus include:
- are feminists lying about rape statistics and inflating them to demonise men, or are rape statistics actually incredibly high because of Muslim migration? Well, both, according to Milo. Feminists lie about rape statistics and rape culture doesn't exist, because feminists are all ugly lesbians with cats and they hate men and want them to suffer, and no-one would want to rape them anyway. But also, mass migration of Muslims to the West is causing enormous levels of rape, sometimes organised and planned in advance by groups of Muslim men as a sort of war tactic in order to take over the West through degrading their women. It's Schrodinger's rape, at once a lie when Milo wants to demonise feminists, and an objective fact when he wants to demonise Muslims. And yet Milo says that feminists are the ones who politicise rape! Eesh.
- is online harassment acceptable under the umbrella of 'trolling', i.e. free speech (Milo feels very strongly that trolling people on Twitter is the archetypal example of free speech, rather than, say, political protest) or is the prevalence of online harassment merely an attempt to silence others by crushing dissidents under the weight of Twitter campaigns and hate mobs? Well, both, according to Milo. When people on the Left bombard figures who they believe to be racist / sexist etc with angry tweets or post their personal information online, it's a case of the Left trying to shut down that person's freedom of speech. When Milo's followers send pictures of gorillas to black actresses and post the addresses of prominent feminists online, it's fine, because they have the right to do it, and it's not like it's serious! God, just get over it, guys. Unless you're doing it to a Nazi, in which case you're a disgusting SJW who needs to get off the Internet and have some sex, or something.
- is fake news a tool of the Left or the Right? Well, both, according to Milo. It's the Left who accuse the Right of fake news, because they can't stand the truth that the media outlets of the Right convey, like how Trump didn't mean he actually grabbed women by the pussy, even though he said he grabbed women by the pussy, and so the Left dub it 'fake news' to try and discredit it, and therefore to attempt to discredit the moral, honest Right in general. But also, when the Right call the Left's output 'fake news', that's accurate because the Left writes about Trump in a bad way, which makes it fake. But when the Left say 'fake news', it's wrong, and they made up the term. But the Right can use it. It's all very confusing when you try and parse out the hypocrisy of it all, but essentially, 'fake news' just means 'things that Milo doesn't agree with', which is, of course, the viewpoint of a reasoned intellectual.
- is the alt-right a hate movement full of Nazis, or is it a movement of misunderstood people who are tired of being lectured to by the morality policing Left? Well, both, according to Milo (have you noticed the pattern here yet?) When the alt-right send Nazi rhetoric or photos of swastikas to Jewish people, they're just trolling, and it's an expression of their anger at the status quo, which makes them feel ignored and downtrodden. But also, says Milo, the alt-right movement has been ambushed by Nazis. But they're not all Nazis, Milo says, except for the ones who are. Who are the Nazis, you ask? Who knows. They're there, somewhere, except for when they're not, except for when they are, which they're not. Unless they are, of course. Says Milo.
Milo has marketed this book as being too dangerous for commercial publication. It's just too degenerate for the masses, he says. He tells truths that people don't want to hear, he says. The dull truth is that this book is dangerous on only two levels, and it's not for the reasons Milo claims. Firstly, the entire reason it was dropped and ultimately self published cannot be limited to 'Milo said things about young boys which was too controversial', even if that's the main line that the press coverage of the book has taken. There are clearly other factors at play here, even beyond the genuinely abysmal writing style (which, by-the-by, reads very much like the secret Reddit history of a 15 year old boy who still thinks that the word 'butt' is the pinnacle of comedy), and these more serious issues of publication become clear when you read the text. Which I did. All of it. Every single awful page. Publishing this book would have opened Simon & Schuster up to multiple lawsuits from the people who Milo explicitly slanders, by the very basic legal definition of the term. Many claims he makes here about specific individuals, several of whom are named, are either patently inaccurate or open to dispute, and unverified, and the few claims which are cited use websites like Breitbart or, hilariously, Milo's own tweets. That insubstantial level of verification and subsequent legal threat is, quite simply, not going to fly in a book with the weight of Simon & Schuster's reputation behind it.
The other primary issue with this book is quite simply that the worldwide supply of anti-nausea drugs could never meet the demand, should this book have been allowed to obtain any semblance of a real audience. There's really only so many times one can read a variation on 'I'm hot and like to fuck... transgressively' before needing some industrial grade anti-emetics. Imagine the world health crisis. What if we all cut ourselves on all the edge? What then, Milo? Have you thought about the edge?!
And listen, in all seriousness, I don't think that Milo is evil. I really, genuinely don't. I think he's a narcissistic showoff who craves attention and validation, and I don't think he'd disagree with me on that; I think he'd probably take it as a compliment (which is part of the problem; people who wallow gloriously in the filth of their own worst qualities like they're bathing in champagne are, alas, the people who seem to shape discourse these days, and are at least 60% of the reason so many of us prefer not to engage with people online, and end up building echo chambers.) The validation that Milo seeks, however, is not validation that he is right, or even that he makes sense - he seeks assurance that yes, he is controversial, and yes, he's super duper edgy and taboo, and yes, he makes people angry. He takes people's rage at his poorly researched, inflammatory statements, and he turns it into his armour. It protects him, because if people attack what he says, which by his own admission is not a reflection of his own thought, then they are not attacking him. His ostentatiousness, his courting of controversy, his pseudo-polemicist rants - these protect him. He craves attention because it is diverting. Look at Milo the persona, the public figure, and not at the person, the man behind it all. There is probably a truly hideous self-portrait in his attic which is feeding off his soul as we speak. Milo makes a carapace of this artifice and hides himself within it, because it's the only way he knows to evade real criticism. Milo is not brave; he's afraid, and this book is not the work of a bold, silenced voice who only wants to speak the truth; it is the work of a man terrified to be authentically perceived, a man who shouts loudly about being silenced because he's afraid that no-one will listen to what he actually wants to say, which is 'please, dear God, won't someone just like me.'
This book is disingenuous to the extreme. It reads more as a man trying to convince himself of the arguments that he's making than anything else. I support freedom of speech. I'm glad that we live in a world where we're able to speak openly about what we believe. That said, I support freedom of speech primarily when people have something to say, and honestly, Milo doesn't, and he doesn't even say it - or hide it - well.
I read nayyirah waheed's 'salt' a few years ago and would have liked this collection a lot more if I hadn't. Honestly, it's pretty much the same book. Hicks-Wilson even uses full stops mid-sentence the exact same way that waheed does, and has done for years, and as beautiful as some of the poems are here, they're all so derivative that it felt like reading a book I'd already read before (McKayla Robbin's 'We Carry the Sky' is another book which reads almost identically to this one.) There's no unique voice here at all, as poetic and lovely as the voice often is, and it lets the book down; untitled, inspirational short form poetry about self-love, with a lot of sun, moon and ocean imagery and 'darling' thrown around a lot, is practically a genre in and of itself, and one collection of them is pretty much identical to the next. There's room for variation, even in this oddly specific genre, but this book doesn't deliver it.
I really did like some of the poems here a lot, particularly the longer ones, where Hicks-Wilson allows herself to develop an idea beyond a line or two. These are the ones which feel most like her own words:
'all words,
like us,
are ninety percent water
you can choose
to drown
in the ones that hurt
or,
you can choose
to let them
cleanse you.'
And even some of the shorter ones were evocative and lovely, and I re-read them a few times just to enjoy them over and over:
'it's not just ghosts
that come back.
the living do
too.'
but others are literally just Pinterest quotes (I even googled them to check):
'you should have been your first love.'
Yep, seen that one before.
This whole book reads a lot like a poet mimicking the voice of other poets, which is fine and a perfectly valid way for a poet to experiment and ultimately craft their own unique way of writing, but it means that it's really hard to view it as a work of art in and of itself, rather than just an addition to an identical canon. It'll appeal to anyone who enjoys that generic Rupi Kaur / Amanda Lovelace style of poetry, where it's all about getting over heartbreak and loving yourself in a series of three-line poems, and I genuinely think that Hicks-Wilson is incredibly talented. In particular, she has an impressive way of crafting gentle imagery that invokes warmth and comfort. She's also clearly impressively prolific, just going by the sheer amount of poems she's already written, and I think there are many better volumes to come from her. This is just a starting point, and it's not bad - it's even great in parts! - but it's just not as original as I think she's capable of.
I really did like some of the poems here a lot, particularly the longer ones, where Hicks-Wilson allows herself to develop an idea beyond a line or two. These are the ones which feel most like her own words:
'all words,
like us,
are ninety percent water
you can choose
to drown
in the ones that hurt
or,
you can choose
to let them
cleanse you.'
And even some of the shorter ones were evocative and lovely, and I re-read them a few times just to enjoy them over and over:
'it's not just ghosts
that come back.
the living do
too.'
but others are literally just Pinterest quotes (I even googled them to check):
'you should have been your first love.'
Yep, seen that one before.
This whole book reads a lot like a poet mimicking the voice of other poets, which is fine and a perfectly valid way for a poet to experiment and ultimately craft their own unique way of writing, but it means that it's really hard to view it as a work of art in and of itself, rather than just an addition to an identical canon. It'll appeal to anyone who enjoys that generic Rupi Kaur / Amanda Lovelace style of poetry, where it's all about getting over heartbreak and loving yourself in a series of three-line poems, and I genuinely think that Hicks-Wilson is incredibly talented. In particular, she has an impressive way of crafting gentle imagery that invokes warmth and comfort. She's also clearly impressively prolific, just going by the sheer amount of poems she's already written, and I think there are many better volumes to come from her. This is just a starting point, and it's not bad - it's even great in parts! - but it's just not as original as I think she's capable of.
Embodied: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology
Wendy Chin-Tanner, Tyler Chin-Tanner
The idea of this anthology is such a good one that I'm really not sure why it hasn't been done before, although looking at some of the pitfalls of the execution, I can see why the challenge might have seemed daunting. Poetry and comic art are two very different mediums, and marrying the two up isn't the most obvious choice. Where it works, it really works, but where it doesn't - well, there are some poems here which work wonderfully as narrative graphic illustrations, but others - mostly the poems which are almost entirely based around imagery - which quite simply don't.
I loved the wealth of voices included in this book (although, in 2021, it's time we stopped proudly proclaiming our anthologies for their 'diversity' if there's no disabled voices in them - this was a real tangible lack in this anthology, especially given that it touted itself multiple times as being diverse) and the sheer variety of poetry and art styles. Obviously, by its nature, there were some artists and poets whose work I liked more than others, but that's par for the course with any anthology. I particularly loved the final poem, Birth, by Wendy Chin-Tanner, and also thought its artwork was probably the most complementary and least distracting of the book. I also really appreciated the study guide at the back and found that it gave me lots of things to think about, and it was really enlightening to re-read some of the poems with those questions in mind.
Unfortunately, for me, having the structure of the poems broken up to fit them into the panels of the artwork really ruined any chance of engaging with most of the poems themselves; I feel like the poems often suffered from being surrounded by the chaos of the art, rather than embellished or enhanced by it. I don't really think that the two mediums really work together with the style of poetry chosen here, alas. It might work with poetry in a more narrative style, but not these ones.
Still, it's a really excellent idea for an anthology, and I think it could be a great series of books. I'd definitely read more of them, but would hope that the choice of poems would be better suited to the project.
I loved the wealth of voices included in this book (although, in 2021, it's time we stopped proudly proclaiming our anthologies for their 'diversity' if there's no disabled voices in them - this was a real tangible lack in this anthology, especially given that it touted itself multiple times as being diverse) and the sheer variety of poetry and art styles. Obviously, by its nature, there were some artists and poets whose work I liked more than others, but that's par for the course with any anthology. I particularly loved the final poem, Birth, by Wendy Chin-Tanner, and also thought its artwork was probably the most complementary and least distracting of the book. I also really appreciated the study guide at the back and found that it gave me lots of things to think about, and it was really enlightening to re-read some of the poems with those questions in mind.
Unfortunately, for me, having the structure of the poems broken up to fit them into the panels of the artwork really ruined any chance of engaging with most of the poems themselves; I feel like the poems often suffered from being surrounded by the chaos of the art, rather than embellished or enhanced by it. I don't really think that the two mediums really work together with the style of poetry chosen here, alas. It might work with poetry in a more narrative style, but not these ones.
Still, it's a really excellent idea for an anthology, and I think it could be a great series of books. I'd definitely read more of them, but would hope that the choice of poems would be better suited to the project.
(Review of an ARC via Netgalley)
I enjoyed this one a lot. I thought it was a really compelling and authentic portrayal of a trans teenager, and there was a lot to like about it. Dean's first person narrative voice is really easy to read and to empathise with, and all of the characters seem realistic, except for the bigoted character, who's so over-the-top and adored by all the authority figures despite it that it sometimes did push the envelope a bit. The theatre scenes are also really well done; I don't know much about theatre, but the book gave enough context to make up for that without just dumping a whole load of exposition. That's a hard line to walk, and this book manages it really well. Dean's love for the theatre is palpable and it really does shine through, making his character seem more realistic; so many books tell us that characters have an interest or a hobby, but don't show us their love for it. This book does that.
It also does a good job of showing how transphobia isn't really taken as seriously by authority figures and institutions, and although I think this book probably does need some trigger warnings, it would be disingenuous to present Dean's narrative as easy.
The one thing I sort of hated about this book was how Dean, treats his girlfriend. His girlfriend, Zoe, is a lesbian and makes that really clear throughout the book, and once Dean tells her that he's trans and plans to medically transition, Zoe tries to support him through it and tells him that she doesn't want to break up with him, but later changes her mind because she doesn't want to be with a guy (... because she's a lesbian.) Dean takes this really badly and acts like she's the least supportive girlfriend in the history of girlfriends, and many of his friends (and thus the narrative in general) affirm his perspective, saying that she's behaved terribly by telling him how she feels. But the thing is, the only way for her to affirm his gender is by ending their relationship. If she stays with him, then the underlying message is that she sees him as a girl. She never tells him not to transition, never says she sees him as anything but a guy, and is obviously affected by the fact that the person she's in love with isn't the gender she's attracted to. I really felt like the book did her character a huge disservice, and it made me really dislike Dean towards the end.
Still, it didn't change the fact that this is a really great book overall, and I think it's fine to have a messy protagonist; no-one's perfect, after all. I just wish that Dean's viewpoint had been challenged a bit more because he didn't really seem to acknowledge that his transition, whilst obviously something entirely personal and right for him and, in many ways, no-one else's business, was still inevitably going to affect other people in his life. Part of that might just be down to the fact that he's a teenage boy, though.
I enjoyed this one a lot. I thought it was a really compelling and authentic portrayal of a trans teenager, and there was a lot to like about it. Dean's first person narrative voice is really easy to read and to empathise with, and all of the characters seem realistic, except for the bigoted character, who's so over-the-top and adored by all the authority figures despite it that it sometimes did push the envelope a bit. The theatre scenes are also really well done; I don't know much about theatre, but the book gave enough context to make up for that without just dumping a whole load of exposition. That's a hard line to walk, and this book manages it really well. Dean's love for the theatre is palpable and it really does shine through, making his character seem more realistic; so many books tell us that characters have an interest or a hobby, but don't show us their love for it. This book does that.
It also does a good job of showing how transphobia isn't really taken as seriously by authority figures and institutions, and although I think this book probably does need some trigger warnings, it would be disingenuous to present Dean's narrative as easy.
The one thing I sort of hated about this book was how Dean, treats his girlfriend. His girlfriend, Zoe, is a lesbian and makes that really clear throughout the book, and once Dean tells her that he's trans and plans to medically transition, Zoe tries to support him through it and tells him that she doesn't want to break up with him, but later changes her mind because she doesn't want to be with a guy (... because she's a lesbian.) Dean takes this really badly and acts like she's the least supportive girlfriend in the history of girlfriends, and many of his friends (and thus the narrative in general) affirm his perspective, saying that she's behaved terribly by telling him how she feels. But the thing is, the only way for her to affirm his gender is by ending their relationship. If she stays with him, then the underlying message is that she sees him as a girl. She never tells him not to transition, never says she sees him as anything but a guy, and is obviously affected by the fact that the person she's in love with isn't the gender she's attracted to. I really felt like the book did her character a huge disservice, and it made me really dislike Dean towards the end.
Still, it didn't change the fact that this is a really great book overall, and I think it's fine to have a messy protagonist; no-one's perfect, after all. I just wish that Dean's viewpoint had been challenged a bit more because he didn't really seem to acknowledge that his transition, whilst obviously something entirely personal and right for him and, in many ways, no-one else's business, was still inevitably going to affect other people in his life. Part of that might just be down to the fact that he's a teenage boy, though.
I initially gave this one 4 stars, but then I read a few other books which I also gave 4 stars to, and I realised that this one was not a 4 star book. I had given it 4 stars because it was very much a 4 star book up to the last 15 or so pages, at which point the law of averages dictated that it became a 3 star book, because the last 15 or so pages were really the last pages of a -3 star book. No stars for that ending. A huge, empty sky devoid of any stars at all. Just bits of space rubble and broken space toilets orbiting around a giant, empty planet with a sulfurous atmosphere.
The majority of this book is tolerable and enjoyable for one main reason, really, and that is the fact that the book feels as though it's building up to something incredible. There's deft foreshadowing and magical realism, and a real sense of macabre, sinister forces at work. You keep reading because you have to know how this will play out. Sure, there's not a whole lot of plot at work for the first hundred pages or so, but it's OK because you know the ultimate pay-off is going to be worth it. It has to be, because there's such an overwhelming sense that something is coming.
And then it doesn't. The entire book caves in on itself and collapses. All the foreshadowing, all the sinister magic and folklore motifs are swept aside - no, more accurately, they're just ignored completely and left to rot on some shelf somewhere - in favour of a really, terribly ill-advised transgender subplot, which is just about the only thing in the entire book that hasn't been cleverly foreshadowed. It hasn't been hinted at at all. It comes from nowhere, and it leaves the book in a nowhere place, dangling on a thin thread at the bottom of a well of potential. Not only does it come completely left field, it's troublingly offensive - and I don't mean that in the 'it didn't use the correct terminology' sense, or 'it was poorly researched', and that therefore it was offensive because it didn't do as good a job as it tried to do in representing transgender narratives. I mean it was offensive because it just didn't try at all. I mean it in the very, very real sense that it misrepresents transgender individuals as mentally ill and dangerous. I'm not the sort of reader who expects authors to represent my own viewpoints in their books, but I am the sort of reader who expects an author to be honest about the plot and message of a book, and this author was not. I've never felt so let down by a book in my entire life, and I read several Torchwood novels, so that's really saying something.
Honestly, the 3 stars I did manage to dredge up for this book are entirely based on the strength of the first 80%. If I were to rate it and give more weight to the ending and how utterly angry and disappointed it left me feeling, it would be a struggle to award it 2 stars. I can't recommend this book to anyone at all, unless you have a masochistic streak and like wasting your time on books which promise you the world for 300 pages and then turn around and tell you that 'the world' is clever slang for 'space toilet rubble'. Love yourself, and don't waste your time on this book. It has lied to you.
Edit: you know what? No, this one gets 2 stars. I can't think about it without feeling angry. This one is going straight on the poop shelf.
The majority of this book is tolerable and enjoyable for one main reason, really, and that is the fact that the book feels as though it's building up to something incredible. There's deft foreshadowing and magical realism, and a real sense of macabre, sinister forces at work. You keep reading because you have to know how this will play out. Sure, there's not a whole lot of plot at work for the first hundred pages or so, but it's OK because you know the ultimate pay-off is going to be worth it. It has to be, because there's such an overwhelming sense that something is coming.
And then it doesn't. The entire book caves in on itself and collapses. All the foreshadowing, all the sinister magic and folklore motifs are swept aside - no, more accurately, they're just ignored completely and left to rot on some shelf somewhere - in favour of a really, terribly ill-advised transgender subplot, which is just about the only thing in the entire book that hasn't been cleverly foreshadowed. It hasn't been hinted at at all. It comes from nowhere, and it leaves the book in a nowhere place, dangling on a thin thread at the bottom of a well of potential. Not only does it come completely left field, it's troublingly offensive - and I don't mean that in the 'it didn't use the correct terminology' sense, or 'it was poorly researched', and that therefore it was offensive because it didn't do as good a job as it tried to do in representing transgender narratives. I mean it was offensive because it just didn't try at all. I mean it in the very, very real sense that it misrepresents transgender individuals as mentally ill and dangerous. I'm not the sort of reader who expects authors to represent my own viewpoints in their books, but I am the sort of reader who expects an author to be honest about the plot and message of a book, and this author was not. I've never felt so let down by a book in my entire life, and I read several Torchwood novels, so that's really saying something.
Honestly, the 3 stars I did manage to dredge up for this book are entirely based on the strength of the first 80%. If I were to rate it and give more weight to the ending and how utterly angry and disappointed it left me feeling, it would be a struggle to award it 2 stars. I can't recommend this book to anyone at all, unless you have a masochistic streak and like wasting your time on books which promise you the world for 300 pages and then turn around and tell you that 'the world' is clever slang for 'space toilet rubble'. Love yourself, and don't waste your time on this book. It has lied to you.
Edit: you know what? No, this one gets 2 stars. I can't think about it without feeling angry. This one is going straight on the poop shelf.
