Hazel Jane Plante

All the characters in Any Other City felt like real, messy people. The exploration of this segment of punk trans femme queer culture was great - gritty, soft, and funny in balanced portions. The first section, in which the main character has not yet figured out that she’s trans, but is both beginning to have a gender crisis and getting her first connections to a trans community, was the most compelling to me. The way Tracy’s insecurity and denial of her own identity made her made her think and do some pretty unpleasant things to the other trans women in her life and the way they still recognized her before she knew herself were painfully real experiences to read about. The second section started to lose me for a while, but it came back to being touching and raw by the end.

I will warn this book is full of graphic and frequent sex scenes. I can appreciate the desire to portray sexuality openly and unflinchingly, whether it is beautiful or gross, damaging, freeing or just fun. However, the detailed descriptions did become a bit much to listen to for me at some point in the second half. Listening to it as an audiobook may have contributed to that.… (more)

2019. A lovesong to a dead friend. The narrator, a trans woman realizes belatedly that she was in love with her friend who died, Vivian. Interesting juxtaposition of a lesbian trans woman and a straight trans woman. This book is a bit bizarre as it spends a lot of time describing a very weird, fictional tv show called Little Blue. I thought there would be a point to it somewhere, but it was just a jumping off point to talk about Vivian a lot. I wished more had happened with the show. But a strong effort, well written and poignant.… (more)