tanouska's Reviews (589)

I really enjoyed the format of this story (with it being first published through tweets). It must have been in my to-reads for a long time, I had no idea, but when I went looking for a cover I found out it was very short, and even available for free on the new yorker website :)

The amount of transphobia in this book is probably realistic, but also very painful to read. 

When I read the first parts, I was a bit bleh about the shape Danny transformed in, (the stereotypical smaller, shapely girl form, like girls can't be tall and have big feet and stuff) but as I hoped that was later mentioned and handled very well in the book itself, with it being due to the ideal version that the media portrays, and that people are affected by that ideal, even if they don't want it or even find it absurd. I also liked that the doc immediately put a stop to that 'real girl' bit of thinking. Go doc.
Another thing I liked was that the Main Bad Gal, wasn't also transphobic. Because it the whole 'not because they're evil on one front, they'll be evil on all fronts' and having one good trait (being non-transphobic) doesn't mean they'll be a decent person all over.
The portrayal of Graywitch also kinda ties into that, she'a whitecloak, a so called goodguy, so she should be alright, right? but she's such a transphobe (of the JKR kind, barf) and I just like that this book does show that nothing is black and white and easy in that way.

I really enjoyed this, but the petty reason to not give 5 starts is that my editing brain reared up again. You can't have someone take off their tie, jacket and shirt, and then 5 pages later have them take it off again, when they were busy with other stuff in between that was not 'putting their clothes back on'. (and some of those 'word sounds the same but has different meaning in this spelling' cases, or just a typo making a different word. Didn't notice the same in parts one and three of the series, wonder if this one was more rushed maybe.)

Seeing a book like this with an aromantic main character is so super rare, I loved it.

I have to admit, I didn't know if I was gonna add this on here at first, because 'ohno, what will people think if I read a kinky smutty book?' But honestly, it's nothing to be ashamed of so here :P This ace person likes to read kinky smutty stories sometimes (most often fanfiction, cause then I know where to find good authors, and know the characters :P)
So when a friend talked about a book they were reading and it was kinky and had good poly? Sign me up :P
(I didn't even read the description before I started it, I trusted my friend, and the descriptions often sound a bit cringy. Still haven't read this one's )
Main reason I didn't give a higher rating was that it really could have used a good editor, and I wasn't able to turn my edit brain off :P (mainly for things like words that sound (mostly) the same but are written differently. (verses instead of versus and stuff. Nothing big ^^ and it was self published, so it makes sense :) )