The (Un)Popular Vote

The West Wing, but make it queer and with high school students.

I had to engage my "willing suspension of disbelief" to get past the premise of this book:
*That a high school race for senior class president would be so serious and intense that it requires pre-nomination focus groups, special interest group campaigning, frequent polling, and a results night with reporting in by homerooms that is as suspenseful and complex as CNN's state by state projection, all carried out by a group of smart nerdy kids who quote political philosophy to each other as part of their natural conversation.
*That a successful liberal Democratic congressman from California would want to hide the fact that his only child is transgender, changing from loving show more father to an almost cartoonishly evil man who will sacrifice his family to get ahead politically.
*That nobody in the media was curious about why the Congressman's politically active daughter had disappeared from the scene, leaving Mark free to live an under the radar life under his trans name.

But once I decided to just go with the flow and accept the story, I found this debut novel by a transmasculine author to be compelling reading, with its endearing but sometimes selfish narrator Mark, and his squad of queer friends who challenge the status quo at their high school after one of them is bullied and then suspended for fighting back. There's a sweet, understated romance, lots of family drama, friends with issues, and a triumphant ending after Mark conquers both internal and external demons. I found myself wishing for a sequel or two so I could find out what happened with Jewish Rachel and her Muslim, genderqueer girlfriend Natalie, allosexual wrestler Pablo, and femme but definitely cisgender Benjy, whose unjust suspension sets the whole plot in motion. The book also made me think about the difference between traditional liberalism and true progressivism, and how allyship without action is meaningless and even hurtful.

That's a lot of message to put on the shoulders of one 18 year old hero, and sometimes Mark isn't up to the task. He wants to make a difference but for large portions of the book he isn't aware of his own privilege and his deeper motivations, and he tells a hurtful lie that of course comes back to haunt him. The book doesn't go into much detail about his coming out as a pansexual transgender individual, but instead focuses more on the daily challenges of living a transmasculine life - testosterone, manspreading, unisex bathroom and all.

I like the fact that in a few short years, we have gone from YA books with transgender characters whose entire arc is the anguish of coming out (see [b:If I Was Your Girl|26156987|If I Was Your Girl|Meredith Russo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1462088577l/26156987._SY75_.jpg|43552369]), to books with transgender characters who are more angsty about other typical adolescent things, like high school elections. Even if those elections are dramatically exaggerated enough that they read like something that Shonda Rhimes or Aaron Sorkin would have created. show less

I'm skipping plot details other than to say the story is fresh and pulled me in quickly. As a 73 year old cisgender male who enjoys reading young adult fiction, this left me thinking of it as a giant 'nudge'. Granted, I grew up knowing a few gay kids and later discovered my dad was gay or bisexual, but the way life is today, the gender spectrum is way broader than 95% of the population can imagine. Reading this book not only entertained me, it expanded my understanding of the breadth and richness of that spectrum better than any book I've read to date. In a perfect world, I'd mandate a copy be part of every high school library collection.

This is the best book I've read in a while.