Finding Your Feet by Cass Lennox: 0/10 Stars

While on holiday in Toronto, Evie Whitmore planned to sightsee and meet other asexuals, not audition for a dance competition. Now she’s representing Toronto’s newest queer dance studio, despite never having danced before. Not only does she have to spend hours learning her routine, she has to do it with one of the grumpiest men she’s ever met. Tyler turns out to be more than a dedicated dancer, though—he might be the kind of man who can sweep her off her feet, literally and figuratively.

Tyler Davis has spent the last year recovering from an emotionally abusive relationship. So he doesn’t need to be pushed into a rushed routine for a dumb competition. Ticking major representation boxes for being trans and biracial isn’t why he went into dance. But Evie turns out to be a dream student. In fact, she helps him remember just how good partnering can be, in all senses of the word. Teaching her the routine, however, raises ghosts for him, ones he’s not sure he can handle.

Plans change, and people change with them. Learning a few steps is one thing; learning to trust again is another entirely.

 

 

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Overall Rating: 0/10 stars

Matt’s Review: 0/5 Stars

Do not read this book.

I identified as a cis, asexual female for over twenty years. Now I identify as a trans, asexual man. I’m also British. In queer terms, I am The Audience for this book. And it is a hotbed of transphobia, and micro-aggressions. I don’t even have room to address the numerous issues outside of the trans things (and boy were there many) so I’m going to literally bullet point the trans problems and just put a stamp on this review saying these are not the only problems with this book. So in no particular order…

Acceptance speech. We are told that being trans is fine by the cis character. At no point does the transgender character (Tyler) actually say ‘this is me, like it or lump it.’ Not once is he permitted pride in who he is. We know trans is okay, because it gets the cis stamp of approval.

…Acceptance speech. We get the clumsiest supposedly pro-trans internal monologue from Evie when she finds out. “Of course, knowing that people came in a variety of genders and that sometimes people had to make physical changes to transition to their true gender was one thing, remembering it and applying it when looking at people interrupting the socialised automatic need to identify everyone’s presented gender was another.” Firstly, this is the most unrealistic thought process I’ve ever seen—this is a sociology lecture, not a person thinking to herself. And secondly, this soulless lecture from a cis character, written by a cis author, comes off like a massive pat on the back for cis people. Aren’t they wonderful, for being enlightened enough to know this? Combined with Evie’s role in telling Tyler it’s okay to be trans, this is veering hard and fast into cis saviour territory. No thank you.

Lack of research. Basic medical facts are flat-out wrong. The best example was Tyler deciding whether or not to drink, because it might affect his T levels. Alcohol does not, and never has, affected T levels. Basic Google duties have been failed in this book.

Inconsistency. There is enormous inconsistency with Tyler’s self-confidence in presentation. He is nervous about using a public toilet, despite no evidence of anything ever having happened in one. But then he is completely fine with donning extremely tight leather trousers and gyrating on a stage in a club. If he’s completely chill with the latter, the former makes no sense. Which means the bathroom scene is only there to code him as trans. And if you can’t write a trans character without having a bathroom scene, then…well, see the point about research.

Abuse is okay. Mental abuse of a trans partner is blown off as ’embarrassing’ and likened to farting at a party. This is a disgusting attitude for a book to take anyway, but when transgender people are disproportionately vulnerable to abuse as opposed to cisgender people, this is just beyond wrong.

…Abuse is okay. Tyler’s boundaries are persistently disrespected and ignored by his friends—he says about five times that he categorically doesn’t want to do the competition. They make him do it anyway. Trans people face a lot of this with regards to our gender identity, and this extension into ‘we won’t respect your decisions about your personal life’ felt even worse applied to a trans person than if it had been applied to cis one.

Mockery is okay. There’s a ‘joke’ about who slipped the trans guy E. This is beyond crass. Both testosterone and estrogen are known by T and E respectively. So either the author didn’t know that, and assumed E only ever refers to ecstasy, or didn’t care. This is not okay.

Trans issues are lesser. The author has actively stated that they didn’t want to write about ‘trans issues’ in a blog post/interview I saw when this came out. Now they also say they don’t want it to be about ace issues but somehow we get a lot of the latter, and none of the former. Now, firstly, you can’t write trans characters without an awareness of trans issues, because this micro-aggressive transphobia happens. And secondly, given that ace issues did get space, this feels like trying to provide a pre-emptive excuse for falling short. Trans issues—as the book is very eager to point out—are never as important as any other issue, ever.

Trans characters are lesser. This book goes out of its way to avoid telling us anything about Tyler as a person. We only know about him in relation to his abusive ex. And yet a good third of the book is devoted to a subplot entirely about two random cis gay guys. We have time for this, but not for anything about Tyler as an individual, outside of his new relationship with Evie or his toxic one with Lucette. Hell, we even get the entire rundown on cis gay Gigi and his history with the cameraman, but nothing on who Tyler actually is. Apart from the token trans love interest, basically.

Transphobia isn’t a thing. When Tyler is asked if there is transphobia in dance, he says yes because he gets picked for jobs just because he is trans. This is a slap in the face to reality. About Ray? The Danish Girl? Anything? Trans people everywhere, every day, are forced out of jobs for being trans and, the rare time that a transgender part comes up in the arts, it still goes to a cis performer. To frame transphobia as something that affects trans people positively like this is just vile.

…Transphobia isn’t a thing. There is a constant, persistent and overwhelming tone applied to Tyler that trans issues are minor compared to any issue affecting anybody else: acephobia, divorce, weight problems, anything. At no point is Tyler allowed to have a problem without another character coming along to remind him, and us, that others have it worse. To the point where Evie is banging on about how difficult explaining asexuality is to her family, and the narrative says that Tyler “could think of a few times when people hadn’t been that friendly to him.” This is a typical micro-aggression levied at us by both LGB and cishet people, and is used to constantly prevent trans issues getting any space, discussion, or support. To find it here, in a queer book? No.

Transphobia! Isn’t! A thing! Getting the theme yet? There is a scene in which another (cisgender) character outright says it’s worse to be fat in high school than trans. And Tyler just rolls with that. No trans person I have ever met would not lose their shit at this one. Yeah, sure, they both suck, but—no. They are in no way comparable, and to shut down a trans person by saying ‘yeah, well, you’re just transgender, I was fat!’ has no damned place in queer fiction.

Transphobia, blah blah blah. Not once is there any consideration of the intersection between ace and trans. I am both. And as an ace person, I still have a moment of ‘are you really?’ when someone who apparently fancies me says they’re ace. I doubt them. I do. It’s horrible of me, but there’s a seed of doubt because, and only because, I carry the result of a lifetime of poison against trans people, telling us we’re undesirable freaks that nobody will want. So even though I myself am ace, I still wonder if this isn’t a convenient excuse to not have to see me naked because ew, trans. Tyler never has this blip. Not ever. Or any other sort of blip along these lines, and it’s just not realistic.

It’s almost as if the decision has been made to have a trans character to tick a diversity box, and then no work has gone into making that character an emotionally authentic portrayal. Call me cynical, but this was overwhelmingly the impression I got throughout this book.

As I said, there are countless other issues aside from the awful handling of a trans character here. (The most obvious to me being the constantly, over-the-top and offensive British stereotyping of twee, tea-drinking posh folks that this publisher seems to enjoy so much.) But primarily as a trans man, this is why I cannot and will not recommend this book. It’s an outright zero stars from me.

(And FYI, there are in fact two asexual meet groups in York. But thanks for playing.)

Maria’s Review: 0/5 Stars

I hated this book.

That’s honestly how I have to start this review. I hated it. For numerous reasons. Mostly because of the abysmal way the trans character was treated here. When I talked about this book with a friend and tried to explain my feelings, he said something that stuck with me. “Oh, so he’s a diversity bingo character. No thanks.” You know what? That sums it up perfectly.

To me, it felt like the author wanted to write two stories. One, Evie’s story and her struggles in everyday life as an asexual girl. Two, the story of Gigi and Brock, two cis gay side characters. Tyler on the other hand? I always felt like he was “thrown in” as an afterthought. There were parts that made it obvious that basic research wasn’t done here, there were parts that just… invalidated him as a person and his feelings so thoroughly, it was sickening, and then there were parts that actually vilified him in a way that had me screaming in my head. He wasn’t even a fully fleshed out character to me – even though he is one of the MCs! – but was used as a prop for other subplots and the story lines of every other character. His struggles, his issues, his problems were always presented as “lesser than.” And that’s a big one since we didn’t even get actual details on what his problems now are and how his life was and is going, because it was all kept vague, at the outer sidelines and hidden behind generic thrown-in phrases.

The only part of his past and present that actually got on-page time was his abusive relationship with his ex-girlfriend. The thing is, the actual showing of the past abuse was handled okay in my opinion. The flashbacks and how it has an ongoing influence on survivors’ everyday interactions with strangers and friends alike. How it shapes your perceptions of yourself and everyone you talk to, work with or try to get closer to. Which made it just that much worse when his “friends” forced and manipulated Tyler into basically reliving the same situation that started his last abusive relationship. And kept on manipulating him throughout the whole damn book! I’ll get back to that in a second.

But regarding the abuse, there was one thing that had me twitching all the damn time. There was nothing there to balance out Tyler’s thoughts and flashbacks. We kept rolling around in this toxic mess the abuse created in his head without ever getting someone who discredits or contradicts it. No actual, real discussions with friends or family – snarky side comments about an “asshole ex” don’t count – and no coping mechanisms, nothing even a little bit deeper than “she’s awful and it’s all in the past now.” All mentioning of the abuse outside of Tyler’s head was basically brushing it off because “I have bigger problems!” and telling him to get over it. THAT’S IT. And that is not okay. At all.

The only one who even tried to explain and talk about the consequences and effects of his last relationship was Tyler himself. And I could relate to that so much sometimes, it was scary. But since nobody actually listened or cared, he eventually got burned for doing exactly what he said he would. He’s the one being painted as the bad guy once he takes a step back and tries to take care of himself when he reacts badly to a situation. And NOBODY CARED. Because his problems were only there to push other viewpoints, and to be invalidated and brushed off by everyone else. Again.

Which brings me to the other part of this hot mess. The “circle of friends.” To be frank, if you have friends like this? You don’t need enemies. It is basically a group of people who use emotional manipulation to get others to do what they want, stab each other in the back, couldn’t care less about their friends’ emotional and mental well-being, and who continue to treat people like chess pieces and objects with no actual feelings or boundaries. They betray confidences, they share personal secrets, they set each other up and push each other into the most awful and possibly triggering situations with a smile and call it “romantic” and “friendship.” They all push a survivor to “finally get over it” one year after he came out of an abusive relationship. One year! Gross. Gross! And when he takes a step back in the present because he got triggered and tries to deal with that? They drop him like a hot potato! What. WHAT. No really. WHAT.

So many issues. I’m seriously running out of space to address more of them. What I actually want to do is rip this book to shreds page by page, because it was physically painful for me to read it from beginning to end. It’s harmful and so very offensive on so many levels. BTW, talking about offensive. Here’s the thing. I’m not British. Only my chosen family is. But. What the actual FUCK was it with the banging on about accents and stereotypes. The obsession of other people with Evie’s accent and her being British was RIDICULOUS. I banged my head on flat surfaces so so often because it went from “oh okay, yeah. I might be able to see why you’d think that” to “is there actually ANY stereotype about British accents and people you HAVEN’T tried to squeeze in for shits and giggles and to justify people saying super offensive crap to that girl all day?!” It was disgusting to be honest.

I’m going to stop now. Conclusion: I hated this book. I will never recommend it to anyone. If I never see it anywhere ever again, it will be too soon.