Effie

This is both the ultimate transgender wish fulfillment story and a horrific family drama, striking a balance between superheroics and rough scenes in Danielle's private life. Yes, the antagonizing voices surrounding her gender identity are harsh and unfortunately realistic, but as affected as she may be, she never backs down when it comes to knowing who she is. It's rare for me to feel this represented by a novel. It touched me deeply from the very start, and the capeshit is just a bonus specifically invented for me. What more would you need in life than a trans superheroine?

Human yearning for affection and validation is a relatable topic again and again. The short stories are very much gorgeous in their sadness, but on occasion they flip from pathetic characters to reprehensible ones: “The Sister” (about one man into teenage girls and one into the other man, who leads him on with the promise of a teen sister and feeds him xtc to get him in his bed) made me sick to my stomach to an extent that I can't remember any book doing, which I suppose isn't the worst compliment I could give. Beyond that, topics like sex work and deformity aren't necessarily tackled as well as race and sexuality, so less than perfect in terms of woke points, which is still more than we can expect from most literature.

This might have been more about what the author needed to write than what I needed to read as a trans sister. I get it, and yet I feel frustrated by the ending, as well as upset about the middle and every use of the word tr*nny. Every cis male side character sucks really badly and that's the world we live in, but I was just hoping to escape into a fantasy rather than be bummed about the reality of trans survival. It's beautiful, but I'm not sure if I'm the audience; it's not necessarily shock porn for cis audiences either, but I can just relate a little too hard?