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welcome everyone, except this book and its author, to 202-Queer 🌈�, the year where i only read queer books


i think there's a lot that can be said about not-own-voice authors writing about the lives and struggles of certain minority groups.

every author should definitely strive to be as inclusive in their writing as possible and include characters that might differ from their personal experiences in any and every regard. also, noone should be forced to come out as being part of a certain group just to write about said group.


that being said, something about a cis author choosing a first person pov to write about a trans girl hating herself for being trans and wishing to be "normal" just rubs me the wrong way.


there is nothing to be gained from Silvey's book. he doesn't have the experience of what it truly means to be trans. he can hypothesize but he will never fully understand.

the entire writing just feels very detached. the description of the trans experience lacks depth. the entire thing just feels uninspired. it is what silvey assumes the trans experience is ("i hate myself, i want to be normal") when in reality that's oftentimes just not the truth or at least not all of it. it completely lacks any kind of nuance.


this book is just trauma porn for cis people. idk why silvey chose to write about trans struggles instead of trans joy (both experiences he doesn't have) but the connotations of a cis person writing about a trans person hating themselves are just very different than when it comes from an own voices author.


this book just serves for cis people to feel sorry for us for one second in their lives and tell their friends that "see, i am capable of feeling empathy for them" - yes, go pat yourself on the back, well done.


not only is it a bad portrayal of the trans experience, it is also a bad story. not to be like "this work of fiction is unrealistic" but this work of fiction is unrealistic.

this 14 year old gets kicked out of culinary school for being too young just to get an apprenticeship under a famous chef. there's a random bank robbery in there that made as much sense as twitter's new user interface under elons management.

it's not even a good time to read cause literally nothing good happens to honeybee.

her therapist compares her to her dog ffs.


overall, if silvey really felt like he needed to write this book there were tons of ways to go on about it that did not include writing from the first person pov of a 14 year old trans girl. he could have written it from the pov of the secondary character Vic, to name but one example.


this book has not been written with trans people in mind and it is not for us. this is a book for cis people who aren't ready to read about the actual trans experience from one of our own and instead want a surface level story to feel better about themselves. 1 star.