Acing the Game

Acing the Game had me thoroughly invested in Shep and Elmer's story and Shep in particular. He was just the best and sweetest cinnamon roll of cinnamon rolls and I wanted to hug him for basically the entire book. Shep is undoubtedly the best part of the story! I loved that he managed to be true to himself even while living in a small, backward kind of town that can't wrap its head around queer people, let alone trans people. It starts off a bit slow as we go through Shep and Elmer's back stories in some detail, from their finding of their identities, to their first romantic and sexual explorations as teenagers/young adults, through loss and finding new love. It really picks up after they've been together for awhile and Shep is running his restaurant – which, please, someone take me to this place, I NEED to try all these delicious meals. Eventually though, as often happens after relationships have been established for awhile, issues arise, insecurities crop up, and we try to deal with them in ways that may or may not be successful or healthy. Shep attempts to do this in dealing with his asexuality and Elmer's desires for more sexual exploration, and...well. The results are a bit sticky.

Overall the story has a very melancholy flavor and while I loved getting to see the journey of a trans person through finding themselves and finding love, I was disappointed in the ending between Shep, Elmer, and Willow. As a polyamorous person myself, I was so hopeful that it was going to be excellent representation for not only queer and trans people but polyamorous people too. Unfortunately that was not the case and I feel the treatment of polyamory was not well done. Sadly accurate, to the extent that people often dive into “trying out” polyamory without doing much research or introspection, but this was a trainwreck of an attempt at non-monogamy and not a good representation of it.