Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: starts with N.
I’ve been trying to read more books with trans authors and trans main characters. Given this perilous moment for trans people, I worry about the erasure of their stories. And I think it’s important to take them in.
Also, the trans experience, like every other marginalized experience, is not one just of suffering and pain. Trans people feel joy, feel ecstasy, feel euphoria. Trans people live their lives like any other and mostly want the same things the rest of us do. So I didn’t necessarily want a story where a trans person was just going around miserable.
Fortunately, this was a fun, endearing romance tale between two women: a closeted transfemale bisexual actress Mackenzie and a lesbian college professor named Lola. I’m not a big romance guy but apparently this is a classic grumpy/sunshine setup: Lola is a crank who easily dismisses most things in life, Mackenzie radiates happiness and joy to all of those around her. Lola is hired to take Mackenzie on a tour of her homeland islands for a tv show, islands that she (Lola) is also a native of. Along the way, the proverbial sparks fly.
What makes the novel so great as the two eventually form their bond is how seriously their respective feelings are taken with each other. Lola has legit reasons for acting like a grouch and McKenzie respects that and respects her boundaries. McKenzie has reasons for keeping her transness a secret; Lola doesn’t pry. These felt like two people who just needed to catch a break and found it in each other.
It is a formulaic romance so take that for what it’s worth. While I did enjoy Mackenzie as a character, I think the writers paint her a bit too dimwitted at times. And the villain in the story, Taron (Lola’s ex), is non-binary and while it’s cool to have non-cis characters, having an enby character be so predatory in their villain behavior is…eh it didn’t completely sit right with me.
But those are details. I liked reading about these two lovebirds trying to figure it out (you’ll have to read to see if they do or not). If I could live in a world of a book I’ve read, it’d be this one. Ours is going to hell in a hand basket and we all deserve happiness, especially our trans siblings.