YA contemporary. The book’s protagonist – who is Black, queer, and trans – is navigating all the stress and drama of adolescence at an arts-focused high school in Manhattan that his dad can hardly afford when an anonymous someone plasters pre-transition images hacked from his phone (accompanied by his deadname) all over the foyer of the school and starts sending him transphobic messages. Overall, a book that I liked, though with a few misgivings. It’s quirky and not likely relevant to most people, but I get squirmy and uncomfortable with mistaken identity or pretending-to-be-someone-else as a plot device, and the protagonist creating a false social media persona as part of an elaborate and ill-conceived revenge plot early in the book definitely evoked that discomfort. As well, though I can appreciate this choice given the book’s target audience, there were sections that laid out ideas through dialogue or other mechanisms that were too transparently didactic for my taste. And it was one of those books where at least certain situations could have been resolved more easily if the characters had just talked about things – not that it is implausible that they didn’t, because after all not talking about things that need it is a pretty common bad choice that lots of us make, but it can distract from reading when you just want to give the characters a shake. Even given those things, the book is an honest and sophisticated picture of the protagonist’s life and his friends, and one that keeps harm and joy both clearly in view. I enjoyed the storytelling, particularly once the pretending-to-be-someone-else element played itself out, and I’m happy to have read it.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.