oh, cool, just got a pub review that basically says I wrote my blackness and transness wrong in Felix Ever After.

I know lots of authors have to deal with this, but this is a first for me, so... yeah, not sure what to do with that.

I should probably ignore, right? alas...

"Felix's ethnicity seems to have no cultural richness"--but Felix's experience as a Black teen is based on my experience, so which Black experience is the reviewer expecting here? is there only one Black experience, and I haven't passed some sort of test? am I not Black enough?

like, seriously, what does that even mean?? I really wanna know what the reviewer was expecting from Felix's race. this really does piss me off, bc it's like the shit ppl would say in high school to me: "why do you talk like you're white? why're you into anime like you're white?"

*sigh* there's a lot to unpack with that quote, but then onto the trans identity...

"the barrage of blatant ignorance and bigotry he faces might haunt readers despite the book's ebullient ending"--uh, yeah, that's what trans people and teens have to deal with on a daily basis.

so I'm not sure why witnessing the trauma we're so used to seeing against Black boys in books like The Hate U Give and others is celebrated, but when I show the trauma and pain trans people have to go through (which isn't even portrayed as violent in the book), it's "too much"?

is it actually because most readers, likely cis, haven't had conversations around transphobia in the way a lot of white folks have at least seen or heard about anti-black police brutality? is this info just new to the reviewer so their head is spinning & they think it's too much?

the only part of the review that had anything to do with craft called the book exhausting & complicated, which I'm gonna call bullshit on, because that ties back to Felix's trans identity. yeah, transphobia is exhausting. welcome to my life, & the lives of trans/enby teens...

what I did with Felix, undoubtedly, was show the painful things people have said to me and my community--and balanced it with responses of love and support, from both Felix and the friends and family that surround him. to skip over and ignore that particular point is... a choice.

tbh the only way I can be *not mad* at this point is if the reviewer turned out to be a Black trans person, and even then, I'd have to sit my fam down and ask a few questions... but this review just drips with unconscious ignorance and bias. like, wow. again, this is my first.

anyway, I swear I'm only up this late because I was actually getting some writing done, not fuming over ignorance, though I'm sure I'm gonna have a hard time getting some sleep now...