Published: April 2nd 2013 by Topside Press
Source: Local Library
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 262
Genre: Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQ+
Synopsis: Nevada is the darkly comedic story of Maria Griffiths, a young trans woman living in New York City and trying to stay true to her punk values while working retail. When she finds out her girlfriend has lied to her, the world she thought she’d carefully built for herself begins to unravel, and Maria sets out on a journey that will most certainly change her forever.
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Spoiler Free Review:
Warning: This book includes depictions of sex and drug use.
I haven’t read many books on transgender protagonists and this book sounded very interesting. I ended up enjoying some parts of the story, but I ultimately found my self disappointed with the story.
Starting with the writing style, initially I found to be refreshing since it was told in a mixture of third and second person. But it really started to annoy me when a person would be speaking it would be read as “she would be like…dialogue.” This was very confusing since I couldn’t tell which was the character’s thoughts and when the character was actually talking. There wasn’t any quotation marks either and the grammar perfectionist inside of me wanted to throw the book across the room.
As for the overall plot, there really isn’t an actual plot to this story. It’s more so a self-discovery journey with main character, Maria. She begins to come to terms with her being transgender, but I felt like there wasn’t much of a conclusion to her problems. She basically ran away from all her problems and nothing was really resolved. She still had her unhealthy coping mechanisms and didn’t necessarily come to terms with what happened to her. The ending was very abrupt and confusing which left me very confused.
Despite my issues, there were some interesting conversation on feminism and misogyny as well as trans-women stereotypes. Since this is own voices, the author was speaking from experience and the Maria’s feelings on being transgender felt raw and genuine.
Overall, I think the stories theme and message on trans gender people was important, but it wasn’t executed very well. By the end, I just wanted to be done with the story and like I mentioned, I did not like the ending. Personally, this book wasn’t for me, but if you’re looking for books on transgender protagonists, I would give this a try.
Rating: 2.5/5
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