On a Cute One

by Frances Cordelia Beaver

If she has to become the monster people treat her as, she’d like to at least become a girl monster famous for being both hot and terrifying. That or it’s just what happens to trans women in her family and she’s the first to express the gene. Either way millennial trans woman Cordie has grown Gorgon style snakes for hair and she has since stopped asking why. She does wonder however if she shares some kind of cosmic sisterhood with the other Gorgon sisters, especially when something happens on a cross country train trip from Philly to LA and back that causes her to make an indelible change to herself in the bathroom of the Superliner. A decision that is both rash and a long time coming.

Cute but for adults and funny in the way serious things have to be sometimes, On a Cute One is a sand box travelogue exploring Cordie’s newly re-encoded sexuality tangled with her desire for approval from cis women and seeing the desert for the first time. Also, making sisters without being related, ghosts without dying, and the extra life cycle stages of trans folk.

Genres: Fiction

605 pages, Paperback

First published August 16, 2021

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in two sittings--it gets you hooked and is a very easy read even though sometimes the sentiments are deep.
I love the art.

[Leigh]

snakes on a train