Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens

Fairly enjoyable, but ultimately a bit dissatisfactory.

The good:
- a queer coming-of-age story that doesn't centre around coming out, but instead of discovering queer culture and the local queer scene
- the relationship with her easy going and supportive dad
- intergenerational queer friendships
- showing an otherwise-anxious person wanting more from life and chasing it
- the "queer scenes are small, everyone has dated everyone" messy lesbian drama

The bad
- the way gender is written about for the trans characters could be described as clumsy at best. Deirde (an otherwise great character) is written as a trans women but is exclusively described as a drag queen, rather than trans woman who also does drag. I don't think the word trans is used at all through the book. When describing trans-feminine characters, the author often dwells on how masculine they are: tall, big, strong, muscular, referencing Adam's apples. It's really not great.
- on another gender point, the titular "in-betweens" are no where to be seen. There's no non-binary characters nor is it ever brought up as a concept.
- the drag scene could have been explored better. It's shown as just a type performing, and that performing is fun! It is stripped of it's cultural, political, and gender identity significance.
- words for queer identities are frequently thrown at characters as slurs, and I wish this was balanced out by more characters delighting and claiming words to describe themselves more.
- it includes my least favourite trope: homophobe/transphobe is secretly gay/trans
- there's a storyline of a parent running off for over a year, which I don't think is given the weight it deserves
- so much vomit

Content Warnings

flameoflareon's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

If you really like YA, you'll probably have a better time with this book than I did. For me, the best part of this book was the title.

The 17yo MC pursuing (and in turn being pursued by) two 20+ year olds, Winnow being the main one,

was really off-putting to me, especially as no one, including the adults, showed any concern about it. On top of odd narrative choices, there were a lot of odd writing choices as well. For example,

Jill revealing to Nima what happened between her and her mom was all through dialogue but it was descriptive and detailed to the level of prose, and at no point did Nima say, "ew stop describing the feel of her lips on your neck, she's my mom and even if she wasn't, I'm a child."

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solenekeleroux's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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davidbythebay's review

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This was good. Like it was better than average but still, my issues outweigh it all and I only can give this three stars (after I started at 3.5/4 when I wrote my first review I deleted before posting by accident >.< ).

If this had been a story about first love, it would have been great. If this had been a story about exploring identity and gender expression, it would have been great. If this had been a story about a mother abandoning her family and how that impacts her lesbian daughter and her relationships with the other mother figures in her life like Deidre and Jill or her friends or her love interests, this would have been great. If this had been about a young girl exploring her LGBTQ+ identity and discovering drag and the Drag Queens and Drag Kings that exist and interest her, this would have been great.

The problem is, it is all these things and not once does it ever really explore something. It just almost “is”. It is a coming of age, identity, first love story that just develops but never explores or goes anywhere but forward without much effort. At one point Charles says Nima, the main character, jumps into things and does them, even if she doesn’t know how. And that’s what this story is, a bunch of leaps with no clue what’s going to happen and no real resolution.

Let’s start with the mother abandoning her. This was brought up - fine, so much potential with that in the background - and then it’s brought up suddenly twice more to jolt the flow of the story with these side quests. I thought they were interesting, but not really necessary to the story I think was the main one. Like with the mother, the Ginny storyline, Jill storyline, Charles storyline, and the biggest disappointment the Gordon storyline, were all brought up and left alone.

Gordon is a jerk. From start to finish he is a bully and a miserable ass. Now, we get some insight into him and see that maybe he’s this way because of his circumstances at home and his personal struggles. Let’s look at those personal struggles, shall we?

Gordon is first portrayed as a cis male who vigorously claims heterosexual attraction to women. He says at one point, though, that sometimes his body doesn’t feel right. So Gordon is questioning his identity and I feel for that. Until he says another jerk comment and I was to take him and tell him to grow up and listen at all the people here who are available to help him with this issue. But what is the issue? We never really know. Is Gordon trans? Is he non-binary? Is he dealing with gay shame? Or fears his bisexuality? There are times he seems interested in men and times he doesn’t.

We NEVER get to experience any clarity of whatever it is Gordon is clearly going through. It’s almost like his storyline is irrelevant, and yet it deserves its own novel.

Some characters are great. Loved Diedre absolutely. Nima, though, was a bit too judgmental and sassy at times. Her age showed. She’s 17 (soon to be 18) but she’s acting like a petulant child a good deal of the time. She’s inexperienced at life and love and wants this relationship with a woman about 6/7 years older than her. Now, I have no qualms with age differences in relationships so long as everyone involved is a freely consenting adult. I bring it up only because the maturity differences are clear. And I bring it up because somehow, this 17 year old girl is allowed into gay bars and drag bars without any protest. Even when carded and using a fake ID she’s waved through because the bouncers either know she’s underage and let her in anyway with a wink, or they barely look at the card. I don’t mind this as many bars have special nights where 18-20 year olds can enter but cannot drink. That’s fine. But this 17 year old is freely drinking beers and liquor like it’s something she’s used to and has no issues - except for one night where she’s so drunk she gets sick. I’m not naive. I know underage drinking occurs. I’ve witnessed it myself, though never drank underage. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be aghast at the blatant alcohol consumption and lack of anyone addressing this in any way in the book. These 17-year-old kids are all drinking like it’s nothing. Unless I’m mistaken, this is a United States town they are in. So that’s too young.

This was a book with too many ideas and not enough editing. If this was the first in a series, it might be worth it. But as a stand-alone it lacks. It’s overstuffed and bloated. And the beginning was so slow! O, how I found it a drudge to get through the first third at least. I wanted to quit then. I’m glad I didn’t but I still wasn’t happy until maybe the last half. That 30-50% window was mixed but improving.

Gordon needs his own book with his story fully told. That’s absolute. But aside from that, I’m going to say this is a good book, better than average and maybe 3.5 star, but I’m only setting it at 3 because it’s barely there.

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daisymaytwizell's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Not usually the biggest fan of high school YA, and this definitely hits a few of those tropes - but the more I read, the more I connected to the characters, and the more Boteju developed them.

Another quick note - I loved that this focused on the characters' queerness without being a "coming out" story. Nima's conflict comes from exploring queer social groups and getting to know herself, but the fact that she is queer is just... a fact. It's so refreshing to see a young queer protagonist who is comfortable with their attraction - and Boteju does a great job crafting a queer coming-of-age narrative that doesn't require that big moment of "hey everyone, I'm X" for any of the characters.

I wish I'd been able to read this book as a teenager, and I'm so excited for the teenagers now who can.

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