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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...
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& #39;s ethnicity seems to have no cultural richness"--but Felix& #39;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& #39;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& #39;s race. this really does piss me off, bc it& #39;s like the shit ppl would say in high school to me: "why do you talk like you& #39;re white? why& #39;re you into anime like you& #39;re white?"
*sigh* there& #39;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& #39;s ebullient ending"--uh, yeah, that& #39;s what trans people and teens have to deal with on a daily basis.
"the barrage of blatant ignorance and bigotry he faces might haunt readers despite the book& #39;s ebullient ending"--uh, yeah, that& #39;s what trans people and teens have to deal with on a daily basis.
so I& #39;m not sure why witnessing the trauma we& #39;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& #39;t even portrayed as violent in the book), it& #39;s "too much"?
is it actually because most readers, likely cis, haven& #39;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& #39;s too much?
the only part of the review that had anything to do with craft called the book exhausting & complicated, which I& #39;m gonna call bullshit on, because that ties back to Felix& #39;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& #39;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.
