This has been on my TBR for quite a while and I honestly don't know how I've only just now read it. It's messy queer lit fic with little plot and lots of theme - definitely the kind of book for me.

The story starts when Wendy goes back to her Mennonite grandparents' small town to go to her grandmother's funeral. While there, she gets a call from a family friend who can no longer keep her late grandfather's secret queerness to herself. The speculation of the details of this secret and the nature of his queerness stays in the background as Wendy's life continues. Through the mundane details of her life, we see Wendy navigate alcoholism as she encounters several big life events. Some things are resolved eventually and others aren't, but I think this tension (or lack thereof in some cases) makes it feel more real.

As we see these events unravel, there is so much going on thematically. Many issues that lots of trans women face are brought up in the plot but even beyond that, there is discussion of transness, community, queer time, religion, family, and so much more. The most compelling thing to me, aside from the realness and vulnerability of the story, are the thematic elements (hence why today's experiment with picture editing features a theme word cloud). This is one that I think I could read multiple times and piece together more of what it has to say each time. 

There's a difference between learning history and politics and feeling like there's actually a possibility for change. This actually brings that inspiration while talking about this history.

It catalogs parts of trans history, but it's about so much more than that. Feinberg talks about early trans history through Indigenous conceptions of gender and early European spiritual leaders that defied current concepts of gender, to figures like Joan of Arc and cross-dressed pesant resistance from the 1600s-1800s, and more. They explore the relationship of transphobia and misogyny, class-based oppression, and colonialism historically.

As they're talking about this history, they also talk about their own journey with gender and politics, how they learned and what impact this history had on them personally. They contextualize themself both in terms of where the writing is coming from and putting themself in this history. They also make clear that this history contextualizes the present and future. This can inform how we can act and demonstrates the necessity of trans liberation -- and how any liberation is not possible without liberation for all marginalized people. 

I also love that even though the narrative only touched on so many parts of history, they included art and photographs with captions about so many different people and parts of trans history. It gives you places to look afterwards, but it also is just a small piece of the hugeness of transgender history. 

I have so many more thoughts about this, but I'll leave it at that for now. This was incredible and if you haven't read any Leslie Feinberg,  now is the time!!

Powerful! I watched a performance of this after reading it (the 1982 version, featuring the author) and it was really great. It brought even more life to it but it also contextualized the intro even more and to see the life of this piece as it has grown and changed.

I went into this thinking it would be good based on reviews I'd seen, unsure if it would be for me since my experience with thrillers are limited. I ended up really liking it! And it is so brilliant. The way history is weaved into the mystery (even more than what's explicitly discussed) was next-level and it speaks to so many different issues at once. I'm not sure how I felt about the romance

(apart from the fact that I was shocked and appalled when there was NO HANDWASHING after we'd established that this man had grave dirt under his nails 👀... someone please tell me I just missed something there)

, but what I did really love was how the community was written! 

I will say, there are some things I wondered about in regards to Theo's character (it seems like he has more unpacking to do and only some of that was really laid out in the text). 

But overall, I was really impressed and I loved it.

It was an interesting story, very well written. I do think I would recommend to read the story before the introduction here. 

 It’s hard to know exactly how to rate this because there were some very strong parts, but some sections left something to be desired. I went into this knowing little about the book (other than it looked interesting and was available on Libby). I think this could definitely be a good starting place for people who haven’t heard of anything beyond body positivity. There is good research that went into this and I like that she included some actionable solutions (even if I may take issue with some, far too often books like this end with more vague ideas of change, so seeing specific legislation recommendations and the like was nice). However, I don’t think it really goes far enough in discussing the nature of fatphobia systemically. 

While she does talk about intersectionality in parts and discusses some issues that pertain to trans people and people of color (particularly in the later half of the book), I don’t think that a lot of the discussion really captures how these things are connected beyond people with multiple marginalized identities existing. I think it would have been productive to talk more about the historical links between these oppressions (anti-fatness stemming from anti-Blackness). I think that some of the discussion on the bias research near the beginning particularly left me with some questions. While I don’t doubt that some parts of the population have decreased overt biases towards queer people and people of color while not having those decreasing attitudes towards fat people, I think that there is a lot more going on societally that was ignored during this discussion (that could have been rectified had she focused more on systems, pulling from more research). While the author is queer, the way she talked about homophobia being more shocking now seemed rather naïve; while it is true in some settings, it is certainly not universal throughout even the whole of the US – especially when you consider the rampant transphobic legislation that has been on the rise (an uptick in 2016 – well before this was written – but also more into 2020 – near the end of the year this was published – and then after the publication of this book, which it could not have accounted for). Other issues were also relegated as passing comments, rather than being a central part of the text at all (like how immigrants are treated in regard to fatphobia). A particularly jarring near-exclusion like this was looking at disability. While she mentions ableism and talks about medical negligence, she doesn’t really contend with the integral connection between ableism and fatphobia (this was particularly made apparent in one of her last anecdotes where she is praised for being healthy. While I do think that this interaction added a lot to the book as a whole, I think not talking about ableism alongside it was a mistake). Nor do I think that capitalism was really contended with – it was mentioned in passing, but contributed little in her actual analysis of fatphobia. 

Related to this, I think, is her use of personal experience (particularly in the first half of the book). I love it when people talk about their personal relationship to the topic. I think that personal anecdotes can really add a lot and in many cases hers did. However, I think she may have relied too heavily on them in parts – while also not including anecdotes in most of these parts from other fat people (particularly, fat people of color, disabled fat people, or fat trans people). I think doing this (whether through interviews or existing posts or articles online) would have really added to this both in terms of being able to see the issues and could lend itself to more robust discussion of the nature of fatphobia as it interacts with other societal marginalizations.  

I think what made this read frustrating for me is that I saw pieces that were very good, some language that would suggest that the author has some understanding of the issues of oppression being more complex (even naming specific issues), but then a lot of the book was still a pretty white-washed understanding of fatphobia and ideas about oppression that are very liberal (what I mentioned before about focusing on the bias research, as well as discussion of anti-fatphobia workshops and videos – cultural competency training that does fairly little, especially long term and especially when what we are contending with is so much larger than how overtly biased people are). 

So overall, I think that this gives some good information and she talks a lot about her experience as a fat queer woman (which is very valuable). I do think this could be a very important read for some people. I was just hoping for something more robust. 

It ended up being very cute, but it was heavier than I anticipated. Still loved it though! 

Around 3.5 or 4 ⭐️

This has a lot of really great discussion about the issues that come with a hard-line pacifist stance and utilizes a lot of strong examples. Regardless of your political stance, I think it has a lot of really important points. 

It has a lot of interesting things to say about how history is represented, as well as the role of privilege in this position as strict pacifism. Many points are made about the relationship of the state to nonviolence, including how the state treats nonviolence, how some nonviolent groups have complied with or enabled the state, and how so many pacifists overlook or completely misunderstand the state and the very real violence it is enacting. It also discusses strategy (or lack thereof) and the issue of the nebulous nature of even the definition of violence

 The last 2 chapters were the weakest. The second to last chapter had important points, but they were not as well framed and integrated into the text as a whole. And did not see the chapter on alternatives as fully fleshed out. 

Overall, it was a strong read, very interesting, and it's definitely one I will be thinking about for a while.