Spy Stuff

by Matthew J. Metzger

Yes, I'm on a spree of Metzger books. I am unashamed. They're worth it.

Anton was driven out of his old school for being trans, so he's determined to go stealth at his new one. His binder is a 'back brace', he doesn't go out for football in case anybody feels anything, and nobody comes over on Sundays because that's when Dad shows up, and Dad still calls him Natasha. But it's really hard to stay closeted to your boyfriend, especially when you're pre-transition, and Jude--well, Jude's smile gives Anton butterflies from day 1. CW for slurs. Probably some homophobic ones that I honestly don't really notice anymore, but notably an ethnic slur for Polish people, the r-slur, the t-slur, and the k-slur*. None of it's meant to harm.

Everything I've come to expect and adore out of a Metzger book. New, refreshing plot that I couldn't predict the end of at any point, death to all the tropes, and, more importantly, a trans character that rings true as written by a trans author. Most of the uneducated-about-trans-shit characters caused no major trauma and were really supportive, Mom and aunt were completely on board, the therapist was written like a good therapist, and we pretty much avoided all the problematic trans narratives that I could think of. Take notes, all ye queer writers! Added to my gifts for other folks list. 5/5.

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*ret*rded, tr*nny, and k*ke respectively.

The Italian Word for Kisses (and an epiphany about fiction plots)

by Matthew J. Metzger
From Amazon and Goodreads, because I didn't feel like trying to write a summary:
"It’s no secret Tav and Luca are going out. After the accident, it’s also no secret that new kid Jack Collins has a raging case of homophobia, and is not best pleased about having given the kiss of life to a gay guy. Either Luca quits swimming, or Jack is going to make him.
Tav favours the tried-and-true method of knocking Jack’s teeth down his neck, only he can’t really afford another school suspension. Luca favours just ignoring him, only ignoring a penknife being held to your throat at New Year’s Eve is downright stupid.
Thing is, Luca suspects Jack is a victim of something himself. And time is running out for Luca to get through to Jack, before Jack gets rid of him."
TW: Canon-typical racism and homophobia, in context of being acknowledged as bad things. Casual ableism, not addressed, including the r-slur. Implied/referenced sexual assault and pedophilia.

As always, I have gobs of praise for Metzger's writing. He's, impossibly, improved since Rhapsody on a Theme.
I never noticed how many tropes exist in published fiction (I say, because fanfiction frequently subverts them, more on that later) until The Italian Word for Kisses kept not going there.
Tav is jealous of Aaron kissing Luca for a play? That's supposed to get out of control and cause major fights, probably including a love triangle. But instead, they talk about it, acknowledge the irrationality, accept that the feeling exists, and move on.
Luca wants to keep what's going on a secret? He's supposed to build an ever-increasing complex web of lies to keep it, until the truth comes out in the end and a proportionally large blowout occurs. But instead, when pressed for details, he admits what's going on.
Even more, since the book begins with Tav and Luca happy together, their relationship ought to end up in serious jeopardy at some point, and spoiler alert, it doesn't.
This is not a book where the whole thing could have been solved early on if everyone had just sat down and talked. Tav and Luca disagreed on it, yes, but we got inside both their heads and saw where both of them were coming from. And where both of them were coming from are such intensely emotional places, it's no wonder they can't come to a decision they both like.
Writers are taught--certainly I was--to pack as much drama as is humanly possible into everything. And only now is it driven home to me that the price is predictability. The number of times something happened to make me go, "OK, the plot is going to be..." before I actually got a handle on what kind of story I was reading. Because normally, all I have to do to figure it out is to figure out how the first conflict that turns up can be made The Most Bad.
Back on fanfiction, I think this is one of the reasons I'm less thrilled about published fiction. Leaving out genre fiction for a bit--those are difficult to predict simply because of the universe they're in--published books have to be a certain length, and so they have a certain amount of plot that needs to happen, and an expectation to pump as much out of the possibilities as they can. One of the most popular genres in fanfiction is hurt/comfort, and when's the last time that was the actual plot of a book you read? That the hurt wasn't a plot device for something more sinister to be revealed in their interpersonal connection, that the comfort doesn't wait until after an internal debate on the part of the comforter? What about fluff?
When was the last time a book surprised me, I'm asking myself. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (surrealist)? Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (also surrealist)? No, probably either Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (sci-fi) or The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde (humor/fantasy). Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick kept me on the edge of my seat, but did it actually surprise me? When was the last time a book surprised you?

TL;DR: Buy Metzger books. Support an asexual transgender writer and be prepared to have your socks knocked off. I'm buying everyone this book for the foreseeable future holidays.

Fan Art by Sarah Tregay

This one's for everybody who's gotten tired of published books in favor of fanfiction: this is the book you've been waiting for. High school romance, fluff, only light angst, mutual pining, and a subplot about censureship.
Jamie's starting to think everybody at school knows he's gay except his best friend Mason, despite not having told any of them. When he promises a friend to get her graphic short into the school literary journal, only to have it rejected for being a gay love story, things get personal as Jamie goes on a crusade for the story. Meanwhile, he's starting to realize he has feelings for his best friend Mason. Will he make it to graduation without everything falling apart?
This is adorable and I'm recommending it/buying it for everyone I know, basically. It's an absolute breath of fresh air. Imagine! A couple doesn't HAVE to misunderstand each other at every possible turn to create maximum drama! 5/5. 

Luna

By Julie Anne Peters

Regan can't get out from under the shadow of her older brother. At school, her teachers expect her to be as brilliant as Liam is. And everything else in her life is impacted by the fact that Liam is transgender, and Regan is his only support system. Regan loves her brother, and so she lets him use her room at night to dress up, put on makeup, and become his real self: Luna, a confident drama queen obsessed with her looks. But the pressure of the closet is getting to Liam, and Regan becomes his bodyguard and moral support as he begins to let Luna out in public. Regan really does love her brother. But the pressure of lying aroun
d the secret of Luna to everyone is messing up her relationships with her parents, her friends, and the cute new guy at school, and something has to change.

I didn't like Regan's way of thinking of Luna and Liam as two separate people with separate pronouns, but it kind of makes sense in character. Otherwise, the plot was enthralling and unpredictable, and Regan's stress over juggling all the lies is treated as valid but not less important than Liam/Luna's struggle with dysphoria. It's an angle not usually seen, but important not just for trans stories, but all forms of queerness and also mental illness. When you lean on one person for your whole support system, and they can't talk to anyone else about it, it takes a toll on them. It's safer and healthier for both of you if you can develop a wider support network, so you don't have to worry about slipping through the grasp of any one person, and they feel like they have the ability to say "Not today."

Overall rating: 4/5.

Project upshot: It's an important angle to keep in mind for the story. How is Jimena taking all this?

Vivaldi in the Dark (and sequels)

by Matthew J. Metzger

This one has absolutely nothing to do with trans* topics, but includes gay, bisexual, asexual, and experimenting characters, and these books are wonderful, and Matt deserves some free publicity, so you're getting a review anyway.

Vivaldi in the Dark, The Devil's Trill Sonata, and Rhapsody on a Theme are a trilogy exploring Jayden and Darren throughout the course of their relationship. So as to avoid spoilers, I'll only summarize the first one. When Jayden discovers a wild-haired, blunt boy practicing Vivaldi, he doesn't expect the prodigy to become his defender against schoolyard bullies. He doesn't expect to fall head-over-heels with Darren and his violin playing. But what he absolutely never imagined is that Darren struggles with severe depression that will impact Jayden's whole life if they pursue a relationship. Trigger warnings over the course of the trilogy include depression, panic attacks, self-harm, suicide, violence by mugging, car accidents, and poor reactions to medication.

They're beautifully contrasting characters. Darren is brusk, lacking a brain-to-mouth filter and rarely willing to talk about feelings. His father pressures him daily to become ever better at the violin, never listening to Darren, who doesn't want to go into music. Jayden is naive by comparison, despite being out at school as gay. His parents love him completely and constantly have his back as he struggles to understand Darren. Jayden falls in love with Darren for his violin playing, but it grows into something much stronger and much more powerful. Jayden's optimism combined with Darren's bluntness keeps a reader hooked and waiting to find out if love will conquer all...if it even can.
 Matt's books, especially Rhapsody on a Theme, have a tendency to start in odd places, and definitely eschew the traditional plotline of coming to a climax that the characters got themselves into and then ending. In multiple places, events happen that are completely random and out of the characters' control. The effect this has, though, is to keep us constantly guessing and unsure what the consequences will be. Especially in RoaT, he removes the surety of 'well, we're twenty pages from the end, this is definitely the climax' and that removes the surety that things will turn out a certain way. Matt tackles challenges like convincingly emotionally aging characters, writing from two points of view in two different places, and realistically describing the struggle with mental illness like a pro. The writing gets ever better throughout the trilogy. I have only two complaints with the whole series.  Jayden thinks Darren's violin playing worsens his depression, and I never noticed a connection...could have been me being oblivious, though. And Darren comes to completely rely on Jayden, saying, essentially, that he can't live without him, and nobody comments on how a relationship can't be healthy if one partner feels they can't leave the relationship--whether they want to or not, it's still trapping them. I'm willing to forgive it this, because it is a romance, as long as I can register with y'all that you should never feel like you cannot survive losing any given person, and that if you do, you're not in a healthy or stable place with yourself or with the other person.

Overall rating:
Vivaldi in the Dark: 4/5
The Devil's Trill Sonata: 5/5
Rhapsody on a Theme: 5/5

Project upshot: Absolutely nothing, but you should read them anyway and buy copies for all your friends.

I Am J

by Cris Beam

J hides his feminine body under two bras and four shirts. He hides from being photographed by being the one behind the camera. He hides from the slew of dyke and suspicion by keeping to himself, only interacting with his parents and his best friend, Melissa. Then an ill-fated kiss and some poorly chosen words catapult him on a whirlwind adventure to drop all that, stop hiding, and become who he really is. A fascinating painter named Blue, a friendly hotel worker, a poet with boy troubles, and a successful trans activist all help to guide J into a deeper understanding of not only himself, but Melissa and his parents as well. Triggers for self-harm.

J's experiences are varied, and the plot believable. Some of the devices were a little less so--are there really queer youth shelters that come with fully functional, queer-only schools? And where I come from, college applications need to be done by the end of winter break, and J was talking about it getting warm outside (in, presumably, Pennsylvania). But the actual motivations were clear and well-supported, which I consider to be much more important. The characters had surprising depth. J's father is Jewish and his mother Puerto Rican Catholic, and on the surface, her reaction seems strangely accepting, but when you really take a look at their actions as a whole, I think it worked. Melissa, too, allows us glimpses of problems that help explain why she doesn't always act with perfect understanding. J was a little bit overly perceptive for me--it felt like this was for the benefit of the reader, to understand why everyone else acts the way they do. For this reason, he is a shell character, allowing the reader to slip in, view the world through his eyes, and not feel entirely out of place. However, many protagonists are like this, including Harry Potter, so I forgive I Am J. It also touches on self-harm, believably, if only briefly.

Overall rating: 4/5

Project upshot: This was actually the inspiring book for the whole search--in order to find trans coming of age books, I looked up this book (which I already owned) on Amazon, looked under the 'other people bought' list, opened up all of those, looked at the 'other people bought' list for each of those, and repeated until I got out of relevant territory. I decided to reread it, to see if I wanted to put it in the paragraph. I'm considering it.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children

by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is the name of Gabe Williams' new radio show, where he gets to exercise his talent as disc jockey and hang out with his neighbor John, his musical mentor. It's the only part of his life that really makes sense--his family refuses to stop calling him Elizabeth, he can't see how to get a job or go to college as Gabe, and now that Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is getting popular at school, he's got to contend with some bullies making serious threats, the overtures from two girls who may or may not know what they're asking, and his best friend Paige acting weirder and weirder.

Excellent. I zipped through it. The characters are compelling and believable, at times walking masses of contradictions that still somehow make sense. The plot pulls you forward relentlessly. Cronn-Mills manages to slide some history in there without slowing down the book. Paige doesn't get a satisfying conclusion, but there's a fine line between concluding that something will remain unresolved (as happens for another subplot) and simply seeming to forget about it.

Overall rating: 5/5

Project upshot: This book is almost certainly going on the touchstone list.

I Know Very Well How I Got My Name

by Elliott DeLine

Our narrator, whose birth certificate name is mentioned so few times I can't remember or find it, learns what being gay means when Ellen Degeneres comes out. He learns what being transgender means when a girl brings an article on it to a GSA meeting. But his real education about gender, sex, love, and identity comes from Amy Wagner, a girl he befriends at school who quickly becomes his best friend, his first significant crush, the taker of his virginity, his re-christener, and indeed, so much that her increasingly inconstant treatment of him drives the book to a shocking climax.
Trigger warnings for suicide and extremely dubious consent.

I Know Very Well How I Got My Name is short, and a little bit oddly structured--we get Dean's childhood, his relationships with his father, mother, grandmother, cats, and friends besides Amy, but it ends abruptly before most of Dean's transition even happens, just as he's putting together a plan to effect it. This is probably due to the fact that this book is a prequel, and forced into its structure by that of the first book, Refuse, which I will read next. The characterization was expertly handled--the focalization during the childhood years clearly showed a child's point of view without using babyish language that would annoy the reader and without rough transition. It's tempting to tell the entire story from the point of view of looking back on the past, but telling a story-of-my-life tale in complete present tense requires skill. The reader can see how bad Amy is for Dean without, at least in my case, losing sympathy for Dean over his inability to see it too. I will definitely be reading the next book.

Overall rating: 4/5

Project upshot: I can definitely see using this as one of my touchstone books for the conference. I think the timeframe is better for my purposes than the sequel will be, but we'll see. Amusing how this review is shorter than the last--I write more when I have things to complain about. A character flaw.