Lessons in Lesbianism

by Fern V. Bedek

When an all female theatre academy opens up to trans women for the first time, Olivia Bishop is happy to apply. Having grown up in a family that breathed theatre, and having transitioned in high school, she feels well prepared to get top marks. There’s a lesson of womanhood she has not learned yet, however. One that the tall and handsome Eliza Haliwell is proving more than happy to teach her.
That lesson being that trans girls can be lesbians too.

Genres: Romance, Transgender

149 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 27, 2023

About the author

Hello!
I’m a Canadian trans woman with a love of art, science, and writing. I have been writing on Scribblehub for a year now, under the username Beedok, and am working on making a full time career out of it.

Reviews

[Megan Mosier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some minimal spoilers:

2.5 stars

I think this book is great for YA who are questioning. There is a lot of awesome representation in this book, but I definitely was disappointed in how it was written. We only got a short glimpse into the conversations between the main characters in the first 100 pages before they got together. It feels strange to not know much about the other character, Eliza since there wasn’t a lot of character development. There was a LOT of skipping around “weeks later” or “days later” when it would have been awesome to get some more insight into how they spent their time together to help build a believable relationship. It would have been super helpful to maybe have a dual POV to help understand both sides of the relationship if we couldn’t have more interaction/meaningful conversation between them.
Additionally, I found myself cringing quite a bit at how the main and supporting characters interacted. It felt very forced and just did not help the storyline. The end felt very rushed and not believable.
Overall, the concept of the book is great for young adult, but the character development and storyline were lacking.

[seasalted.citrus (Topaz, Oliver) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, it was nice to have a trans lesbian lead in a romance novel, especially one with a ton of tropes. Olivia’s dissections of her own internalized misogyny were on-the-nose but still worked? But all the cast felt archetypal, especially Carl, whose purpose was just to be an irredeemable cishet (ex) boyfriend lol. Can’t decide if the fluffiness and amateur writing make this feel more like a fanfiction found 3 pages into Ao3 searches, or a Hallmark movie with only 1/4 of the holiday thing?

[Jane Scarfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice and fun book. A little let down by the ending feeling so rushed but altogether a good read.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely could have been longer, but a fun and cute read!