📚 Review: This was like a fever dream. I see why people say it was so influential in trans literature and in general - and I loved it. I think it was a great commentary on the individuality of being trans while also being existing as part of a community. This book was a joy to read, though it was definitely sad, but also had a lot of queer and trans and feminist theory. This style and writing isn’t for everyone, but I loved it and this book. It was so relevant when it was written and today, and I can’t wait to revisit it. Nevada was rough, gritty, queer, and powerful. TLDR - gender is a construct. 

Some of my favourite quotes:

"I have been trans since I was little.

There is this dumb thing where trans women feel like we all have to prove that we're totally trans as fuck and there's no doubt in our minds that we're Really, Truly Trans. It comes from the fact you have to prove that you're trans to psychologists and doctors: the burden is entirely on your own shoulders to prove that you're Really Trans in order to get any treatment at all.” 

“Six years on and it's still weird to be called Miss. Not bad, just like, oh yeah, I guess I did that. Who knows whether that part of being trans ever fades. Probably not. Or more specifically, probably not when you still have to shave, when your junk still gets in the way and makes your clothes fit wrong every morning. It probably doesn't go away until you are rich.”

“She wakes up around four thirty and feels rested. Do other people feel like this all the time? It's fucked up.”

“Because if he's being totally honest with himself, on some level James has already figured out that this girl is trans and while he hasn't processed what that means yet he is having this desperate magnetic attraction to her.

Like not even sexual. Just like, I want to be your Facebook friend or something. I need to grab you, to have you in my life. Whatever.”

“Plus the world has moved on from the narrative that says being trans is something to be avoided at all costs; it's moved on from the narrative that says the only way to be trans is to be young and tiny and pretty and into men and to transition and then disappear. There's a much better understanding of what it means to be trans now: you just are trans. The fact that your transition might not go smoothly because of the shape of your body or the shape of your family or the shape of your personality or the way that your sexuality has been shaped does not mean that therefore you can just decide not to be trans. You can't will it away. Deciding to will it away is a defense mechanism that is inevitably going to fail and you'll be back where you started: trans. Just older and more entrenched in a life that itself is not much more than a coping mechanism designed to keep you from having to be trans in the real world. If you're trans you're trans and if you're obsessed with whether you might be trans you probably are trans.” 

Trans MC who is transphobic

A charming novel. The book really shines when the MC is talking about the neuances and complexities of being a trans woman and the trans feminine experience, but it also all falls flat when Maria talks about trans men and transmasculine experiences, sometimes just plain shitting on them, sometimes just stating things that are simply factually incorrect. Now I read books where main characters have questionable views all the time, that's not my issue, but here at least to me it seems like these aren't just presented as the character's biased opinions, but as objective truth and Maria and some other characters are used as vessels for the author to lay down her own views on the page. I felt the need to point this out and critisize it especially because I've seen this book recommended a few times over the years, none of those times was this even mentioned or acknowledged in any way. I went into this book thinking I was going to read a literary novel about a trans woman and a commentary on the neuances and complexities of gender and transitioning in American society and I did get that out of it but I also got to read a book that too often shits on transmasculine people and gives matter of fact statements that are objectively and factually wrong. Only in some reviews here and on goodreads I saw these problems with the book acknowledged.

Some stuff that irked me but not too much:
 -the overuse of the word bohemian or rather describing random stuff as bohemian even if it was ironic, it was done kinda sloppily
 -with this type of character and novel there needs to be a certain degree of irony and self awareness that I felt weren't present enough

other than that the book was a mostly pleasant experience to go through

so weird, but so interesting. made me realize some personal stuff, so that's great. lots of drug stuff tho. 

I keep waffling on how I want to rate this book. It’s a work that feels deeply personal, deeply “of its time,” and like the debut work that it is. I think that “the discourse” (which I say sort-of ironically and in finger-quotes, and sort-of not) around trans issues has necessarily changed enormously since this was written and published— in some positive ways, yes, but also as right-wing groups create bogeyman out of trans people for talking points and cultural control. 

All this to say: when I speak with my friends, these days, about whatever the online manufactured inter-community discourse of the day is, I often find myself saying something like, “I wish there was a way for this conversation to be happening, but just between trans people.” And all that to say: that’s what this book feels like to me, a book about and for and between trans people, a conversation that centers us and particularly trans women. It’s not that I wouldn’t want cis people to read it, and it’s not as though it wouldn’t be accessible to people who are not trans— but it’s for us. That’s its strength and its greatest charm, and I think that’s why I want to take its flaws with a grain of salt and a baseline of good will.

It’s not a perfect book, and not one where I feel I agree with everything that the narrators do or say or think— but hearing the author herself read it, you feel the willingness to be wrong, a self-deprecating awareness that to tell an individual trans persons story isn’t to endorse every aspect of it. There are beats that resonate down to the very core, and throughlines that feel eerily familiar, and flawed gold veins of selfishness that feel raw and real. 

Our main characters are a little to sometimes a lot pathetic and very humanly flawed and variably likeable depending on the day. Our plot meanders and skids and gets knocked off track and never decides to get back on it. Our narration… feels very much like the 2012-2013, first-person forum writing— but I liked listening to it, and the wry sort-of-bashful-sort-of-cocky self awareness of it. There’s a lot of humor and heart here. There’s a lot of frustration, also. I don’t know that I would want to know most of these people; I felt dragged into the spotlight by some of the similarities I felt with them, too. The afterword was one of the best parts— I loved hearing what the author had to say about what the book is about, and her reflections on her own life in regards to the work, and her discussions about the act of crafting it, and what she chose to show and what to leave out. 

Anyway, I didn’t love it the whole way through. Anyway, I couldn’t stop listening. Anyway, I love that it exists. As always, mind the content warnings— mine probably won’t cover it all just because I’ve been noodling around the book itself a little too much.