Felix Ever After

YA romance 

     "Why am I always the person who just sits to the side and watches?  What is it about me that no one likes, that no one wants?  It's like it's too much for other people--me having brown skin, and being queer, and being trans on top of that...or, maybe that's just what I tell myself because I'm too afraid to put myself out there again, too afraid of being rejected and getting hurt.  Maybe it's a little bit of both."

     Felix Love, protagonist of Kacen Callender's Felix Ever After, despite his ironic last name, watches other people kiss, flirt, and dance, desperate to know what it's like to be in love.  He's experienced one short romance that ended badly.  But that's not his only rejection.  When he was quite young his mother abandoned him and his father to start a new family and never looked back.  He has nearly five hundred emails to her on his smartphone drafted but never sent.  

     Felix is attending summer ☀️ art 🎨 classes at his high school, St. Catherine's.  His dream school, Brown University, has a meager 9 percent acceptance rate.  His grades and test scores aren't anything near exemplary.  So he really has to make his portfolio count.  He needs not only acceptance but a full ride scholarship.  His father is a night doorman at a hotel who gets as many day gigs as he can.  And the treatments that Felix requires to stay trans are expensive.

     One day, arriving at school, Felix is horrified to find a gallery on the lobby walls: 16" x 16" photos 📸 from his pre transition years labeled with his dead name.

     "Photos of who I used to be.

     Long hair.  Dresses.  Pictures of me with these forced smiles.  Expressions showing just how uncomfortable I always felt.  The physical pain is strained across my face in those photos.

     That discomfort is nothing compared to now.

     I can't fucking breathe."

     Believing that if the school gets involved they won't "do shit", Felix decides to take matters into his own hands.  Sure that he knows who the bully is, he's out to destroy him.

     But what if he's wrong?  What if the situation is more complicated than he realizes?

     Felix Ever After is an excellent read for people trying to make sense of intersectional marginalized identities and their friends and family.  It would be enlightening for teens and adults who believe and preach that nonbinary identities aren't really.  Sadly they'll probably not only not read it but pressure school and public libraries to ban it.

On a purrrsonal note, apart from libraries, independent bookstores are some of our biggest allies in the fight against book censorship.  In Penobscot County, Maine we are very lucky to have The Briar Patch in the heart of downtown Bangor.  In the not so distant past it was more like Mother Goose's hang out, all sweetness and pastels.  But under new management it is a candy 🍬 shop of diversity, inclusion, and truth telling.  Cases stretching to over my head are packed with fine offerings.  The enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and friendly staff can help you find what you want.  I go there when I get a chance to discover 🔥 new books 📚 to review for this blog.  If you live in or visit Bangor, Maine make sure to drop in.  You'll feel at home in a New York minute.  If you live elsewhere you can drop in virtually and order books 📚.   Just don't forget to also locate and patronize enlightened bookstores in your area.  In today's 🌎 we really need them.  (Jules)

The Briar Patch is the 🐈 😻 🐈‍⬛️ 😺 🐱 😸 's pajamas.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to The Briar Patch and the other fine bookstores keeping diverse, inclusive, and truth telling books 📚 available for readers.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

     

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