Read as part of cbr17bingo: school setting. The book takes place mostly at a high school, revolving around a football team.
In reading about the lives of trans people, fictional and otherwise, the thing they want most is to be treated normally.
Obviously, it’s difficult to do on the one hand with the whole country lurching from mild acceptance of trans people to full-on hostility against them. But it’s also difficult when dealing with the well-intentioned, supportive ally crowd who just wants to let them know they are here for them. And they are insistent in letting them know. Not to mention the weirdo crowd that isn’t exactly anti-trans but has a lot of hangups as to how it all works.
Most of this wonderful debut novel from Victoria Zeller is just Grace trying to live, hoping she will be treated normally while she figures out what being trans means to her. Imagine how difficult your teenage years were, now put yourself under a microscope of being a gender minority and already having a public presence because of football.
At first, I thought the flashback scenes were a little clunky; they were my only real beef early on. But as the narrative gained momentum, they became more poignant, their use more effectively deployed as we see Grace struggle and thrive under difficult circumstances; circumstances due to those around her who just can’t…be…normal.
Also, as someone who played high school football, Zeller gets a lot of the little things right, both the good and the bad about football culture. This was overall an enjoyable read from a talented writer who will hopefully build off of it for more work.