I’m not typically a huge romance fan because I get really hung up on the premise the romance is constructed around. In this case it’s the MC pretending her brother is more transphobic than he is to get attention from her high school crush. And I did struggle with this because pity does not really equal chemistry in my mind? But I really wanted to power through because it’s a sapphic romance with a bi trans protagonist, something that is exceptionally rare to see represented.

In the end I’m glad I pushed through my initial sense of annoyance. The initial lie ended up making more sense in the context of the story, how it was an assumption of oppression by a trans ally, but also not far from the truth. It makes sense how this got muddled up given Julie’s complex lived experience and (misplaced) desire for validation of her gender.

The sense of humor worked for me and it felt genuinely funny. I loved the bits of Jewish culture that were sprinkled in, they felt natural and not tokenistic. And the trans rep felt really lifelike, it examines the complexities of being trans in a way that felt really true to life for a certain type of relatively privileged trans person.

My favorite thing was how this examined the MCs relationship with her family being a child of divorce. Her dynamic with her parents felt really fleshed out, especially with her mother, and the complex Jewish mother daughter relationship made even more murky by Julie’s transness.

Things to know:
Bi, trans woman MC, lesbian and pansexual love interests
Humor felt funny to me but borders on feeling millennial which might put some people off
Low spice level, there are sex scenes but they don’t go into much detail