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Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Oct. 10th, 2021 01:01 pmCemetery Boys
3/5. Story of a trans teen trying to find acceptance in his sorta secret community of latinx brujos and brujas in Los Angeles.
I can see how this book could easily mean the world to the right person, but I am not that person. And I don't even mean that I'm not trans or latinx. I really mean that I intensely disliked the love interest's type back when I was a teen myself (a walking advertisement for terrible judgment and zero impulse control, with a supposed heart of gold or whatever) and I certainly don't like him any better now.
Also, the book does arrange to have our protagonist called on his worldview, but it's just a passing objection and makes no real impact. And his worldview is very that flavor of trans identity where a person expresses their transness by way of insisting on participating in really strict, inflexible, and sexist gender norms. He's a boy, so by God he will prove himself to be the best boy within his culture's incredibly narrow notion of what a boy is and does. This is recognizably a way people approach transition sometimes, but I found it tiring to read about in all its authenticity and intense . . . 16ness. Also, I have a gut-level dislike for a trans narrative where the new gender is "proven" through some magical mcguffin, but maybe that's just me?
Content notes: Death, some violence.
3/5. Story of a trans teen trying to find acceptance in his sorta secret community of latinx brujos and brujas in Los Angeles.
I can see how this book could easily mean the world to the right person, but I am not that person. And I don't even mean that I'm not trans or latinx. I really mean that I intensely disliked the love interest's type back when I was a teen myself (a walking advertisement for terrible judgment and zero impulse control, with a supposed heart of gold or whatever) and I certainly don't like him any better now.
Also, the book does arrange to have our protagonist called on his worldview, but it's just a passing objection and makes no real impact. And his worldview is very that flavor of trans identity where a person expresses their transness by way of insisting on participating in really strict, inflexible, and sexist gender norms. He's a boy, so by God he will prove himself to be the best boy within his culture's incredibly narrow notion of what a boy is and does. This is recognizably a way people approach transition sometimes, but I found it tiring to read about in all its authenticity and intense . . . 16ness. Also, I have a gut-level dislike for a trans narrative where the new gender is "proven" through some magical mcguffin, but maybe that's just me?
Content notes: Death, some violence.
