#transreading

What Makes You Beautiful is a really quick read. It’s short in length, with a straight-forward plot that pulls the reader along. While there are some darker moments (particularly instances of racism, homophobia, and so on), it’s by and large a sweet book -- and even downright cheesy at times. If you’re looking for a pleasant read to pass an afternoon or a flight, What Makes You Beautiful fits the bill.

There is a lot packed into this little book though, despite its brevity. The cast is highly diverse in terms of sexuality, gender, ethnicity, religion, and more. With so many different identities in play, the author gets to explore a lot of different topics naturally in the story.

For example, Veronica has doubts about being a trans girl because she fears she’s falling into the stereotype of Asian men being submissive. Veronica and her friends come into conflict with their voice teacher because all the winter concert songs are Christmas songs. One of her friends discloses that it was difficult to get his gender identity respected because of his autism. And so on and so forth. These many intersections of identity reflect the complexities of the real world and make What Makes You Beautiful stand out from similar trans coming out narratives.

There are moments, however, that might come across as over the top and strain readers’ suspension of belief. For instance, when Veronica’s father drops her off at school on the second day, he sees her visibly queer friends waiting for her and shouts at them, “Kids like you are ruining this great country!” It’s a really erratic burst of violent homophobia from someone who is otherwise portrayed as more your run-of-the-mill “I’m not bigoted!” casual bigot.

My belief was also strained by how quickly the character relationships developed. Veronica is pretty much folded into an existing friend group her very first day of school, in addition to making friends outside the group.

It’s true that friendships generally move faster with kids than adults, but I couldn’t help but raise a skeptical eyebrow when Veronica thought “I feel safe nestled between these two boys” and earnestly saying “I never had friends like you two before” within 24 hours of meeting them. Arguably, Veronica is starved for friendship since it seems she didn’t have any at her previous school. But since she was bullied, I’d expect her to be more wary.

I appreciated how well the love interest was handled. Kyle hangs around with the queer kids but is straight himself. He initially isn’t especially romantically or sexually attracted to Veronica. However, as her true gender becomes more apparent and she begins experimenting with presentation, his feelings spark. Later, he’s frank with her that this made him question his sexuality, but it doesn’t come across as an “Oh, god, am I gay??????” panic. It’s also refreshing that the guy who is indisputably the hottest in the book is Asian, since Asian men in media are so often classed as less than sexually desirable.

Reading What Makes You Beautiful was kind of nostalgic to me. I also attended an arts high school, so I remember the unique energy of being surrounded by people who are all into the same craft as you. My high school also had a reputation as the “gay school,” though students weren’t nearly as openly queer -- and the teachers weren’t nearly as queer-friendly -- as at Veronica’s school. Perhaps though my school today is more like Veronica’s than the school I remember; a lot has changed in the last decade.

To wrap up, I recommend What Makes You Beautiful if you are looking for a trans coming out narrative where the main character has a really supportive friend group (as well as the mentorship of a trans adult.) If you relate to the “It was obvious to other people, but I didn’t notice until it was pointed out” sort of trans experience, you’ll likely find a lot to relate to here.

I related a lot to Treasa’s connection with a fictional character and the way he explored his own identity via writing fanficton. Throughout The Other Me, Treasa is working on a fic in which Resa is romantically involved with Tristan, Treasa’s original character. Treasa projects a lot of himself and his developing relationship with Gabriel onto Tristan and Resa respectively. As someone who also first explored my gender through writing slash fic, I thought this was a really great characterization that’s not often seen, but a fairly common experience.

The writing in The Other Me is clean and the story is easy to follow. Treasa and Gabriel’s storylines are given equal weight (though I’ve focused a lot more on Treasa here) and their perspectives are distinguishable from the other. The pacing is good for the most part, though I thought the ending felt a little rushed.

If you like reading messy relationships and high school drama, this might be right up your alley. However, readers should expect the same kind of slut shaming and misogyny that they might also hear in the halls of a high school. Unfortunately, it’s not often challenged.

The story suffers from a “I’m not like the other girls” vibe. While such a feeling is a common experience among many AFAB trans and nonbinary people, it’s somewhat problematic here because the “other girls” in the book are a bit of a monolith. Thus, the concept of womanhood in the book is very narrow.

By and large, the female characters are feminine, straight, and at least a little catty-- the epitome of stereotypical teen girly girl. The book doesn’t really explore the many different ways there are to be a woman; Treasa just rejects the singular way presented. The only times that other types of womanhood are discussed are in passing and usually in the context of “why can’t you be like that instead of trans?” This likely echoes the experience of many AFAB trans and nonbinary people, but to me the narrative would’ve been stronger if Treasa were more aware of the options available for women and still stood fast in his identity.

One element that I thought was particularly well done was Treasa’s relationship with his mother. She is protective and reluctant to recognize that Treasa is an independent-minded teenager, not a small child. Their dynamic felt authentic, with a lot of raw emotion. The power struggle between them over Treasa’s bodily autonomy is likely to resonate with a lot of trans readers.

Something that people may struggle with is Gabriel’s father. It’d be generous to say that Gabriel and his father have been fighting since Gabriel’s mother’s death. It might be more accurate to say that his father is outright abusive. However, the story humanizes the father by revealing The Reason for his behavior. Despite this, I think most readers would still find his father’s actions unforgivable.

Gabriel doesn’t exactly forgive his father either. While it seems he may like to reconcile with his father eventually, his feelings on the matter are understandably complicated. I could relate to this storyline and the broken parent-child relationship felt realistic to me, but other readers may be put off by any attempt to explain or excuse abuse.

A final note: I feel wholly unqualified to comment extensively on the racial dynamics of a country that is not my own. That said, this book struck me as very white for a story set in South Africa, which is around 80% Black. Not to say there are no Black characters at all-- there’s a few minor characters, to my best knowledge-- and not to say that there aren’t plenty of books by white Americans guilty of the same issue. It’s just something that stood out to me, (along with the rather jarring line “I make like a Kenyan and sprint out”).

A quick run-down of the plot: Elliot is crossplaying at a con for the first time and nervous. He quickly meets Izzy, a talented cosplayer well-known on the local scene. They fall into an easy friendship that soon becomes a romance. However, Izzy is inexperienced with dating, mostly due to worrying how her partners might react when they learn she is a trans woman. Elliot, meanwhile, has some insecurities of his own.

It’s clear that the author, Emmy Engberts, has intimate knowledge of being transgender, being an animanga fan, and being a transgender person within animanga fandom. There’s a lot of insight in The Other Dress that you likely wouldn’t get from someone who simply researched the topics.

One thing that stood out to me early on is Izzy being concerned about getting misgendered at an anime convention-- not because the con might have a lot of ignorant people, but because cons are spaces with a lot of gender play and fluidity. (As many trans people can attest, it’s sometimes easier to be read as the correct gender in more conservative spaces with rigid binary perceptions of gender.)

I also especially appreciated the attention given to how gender identity is a spectrum and it’s normal to have doubts about where exactly you fall on it. Elliot has an extended conversation with a close friend about how it bothers him that people assume he must be trans since he crossdresses-- but, at the same time, he does personally wonder if he might be trans. In addition, I related to Elliot being annoyed at the way his parents always seem to be on the verge of questioning him but staying silent, while at the same time privately acknowledging that he doesn’t want to explain every detail to them.

As much as I enjoyed all the great transgender insights, it was also refreshing that the story does not revolve entirely around gender issues. Elliot and Izzy deal with problems that any couple might have, such as in different cities and struggling with depression. Furthermore, both the main characters are huge geeks with friends and hobbies outside the queer realm. Overall, I’d say The Other Dress strikes a good balance between acknowledging how big of a role a trans identity can play in someone’s life without making it seems like that is all there is to their life.

One big caveat concerning this book though: it would have benefited greatly from more thorough editing, both on a line-by-line level and on a developmental level. Grammatically speaking, readers should be prepared to encounter a lot of comma splices, missing words, incorrect punctuation, etc. This may turn some readers off entirely; I powered through on account of the book being self-published. I know how expensive it can be to hire an editor on your own dime.

As for the larger issues, I found the pacing to be a little unbalanced. About half the book follows Elliot and Izzy over the course of the con weekend. The other half of the book takes place over the course of several weeks (months)? It struck me as uneven, though other readers may not mind.

In addition, I found it strange that the book essentially had two prologues-- one labeled Before and one labeled as Chapter One, but taking place two years before the rest of the book. That amount of set-up felt unnecessary to me and honestly confused me in the beginning. (We see Izzy meeting some new people for the first time, and then shortly afterwards they are referenced as having been friends for years.)

Finally, the book is told from both Elliot and Izzy’s points of view, but their character “voices” were largely the same. They do have different personalities, so I wish their unique traits and perspectives were reflected more in the writing style for each voice.