Kiss Number 8

2.5 The art was much better than the story line here, so I bumped my rating an additional star for Ellen's excellent & realistic drawings. I understand Colleen's intent, and even the 2004 setting (though not enough was done to ground that setting, so a reader could easily forget that and get confused) but I don't believe a cis non- #ownvoices author did well here. She put in dialogue about a character volunteering their deadname and the redemptive arcs...weren't. I do appreciate an effort to show religion as problematic but not necessarily the enemy, but overall she tried to do too much here and many storylines weren't respectfully or sensitively done.

did not expect this to hit me so hard