A Safe Girl to Love: Stories

by Casey Plett

Eleven unique short stories that stretch from a rural Canadian Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn, featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love.

These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but never will it be predictable.

Other women
Twenty hot tips to shopping success
How old are you anyway?
How to stay friends
Lizzy & Annie
Real equality (a manifesto)
Portland, Oregon
Not bleak
A carried ocean breeze
Winning
Youth

Genres: Short Stories, Queer, Fiction, LGBT, Transgender, Contemporary, Gender

229 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

Casey Plett is the author of On Community, A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, and A Safe Girl to Love, the co-editor of Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science FIction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers, the Publisher at LittlePuss Press, and the winner of the Amazon First Novel Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University.

Reviews

[Kaleb Fischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book attempts to convey the diversity of transfeminine experience, it doesn't quite get there. The author seemed to have an incapacity to write outside of their own experience. (Like I'm pretty sure that transfeminine individuals do not universally work in book stores, attend university in some capacity, and love getting their nipples abused after getting sloshed. Geez.) The narrators shared a very similar, even indistinguishable voice.

I'm not sure what the point was of the quirky grammar exclusion of quotation marks except for when talking to cats. It was distracting and confusing and didn't add to the book in any way. I felt like the drop off endings were another attempt to be quirky, but also did nothing to add to the book.

With the exception of the very narrow range of diversity of experience, the book had a very authentic and honest feel and I think that it is important that books like this exist. It just wasn't particularly memorable or profound for me personally.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

You'd think that with how much I read this would be old hat by now, but I always get a little bit anxious when a friend publishes something. What if it isn't good? What if I don't like it? How do you walk that line between supporting their work and wanting to be honest about your opinion of their work? I've lost a lot of sleep over how to review books of this sort, that complex dance of criticism, the "well i liked this aspect, but this and this felt like they were superfluous" waltz of carefully worded critiques. Fortunately, when it comes to the stories of Casey Plett, this concern never even crossed my mind. I was in love from word one.

No stranger to the written word, Plett has previously written a column on transitioning for McSweeneys and had a story featured in Topside Press' 2012 anthology, The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard. Both marked her as a voice to be watched, a writer whose spare style and conversational approach evokes many comparisons to Michelle Tea's fictionalized memoirs of lesbian living. With the publication of her first short story collection, Plett makes good on the promise hinted at in her earlier stories, also reprinted herein, and offers us a sampler plate of the myriad ways that trans women are living, loving, and existing all throughout the country.

These girls are beautiful, at turns both fiercely strong and defiant against a world that loathes or fetishizes them and also so frighteningly fragile and vulnerable, so breakable that you'd like to capture them in a bell jar and keep them tucked away safe forever. Like Lisa, the recently single cam girl haunted by memories of her ex and crippling social anxiety, who ends up having a kink-fueled fling with an older lesbian in "How Old Are You Anyway?", a story which had me both titillated and nodding along in recognition as her conscious narrative devolved to a catalog of sensory input, those amazing spikes of pain that shoot from nipple to groin to neck and back again and all you want is for that ache to never end because for a moment you're so mercifully free of all concerns and actually home in your body and actually feeling and what does it matter that it's pain and hurt because for so long you've just felt nothing that to be able to feel anything physical at all is just so fucking transcendental. And then it's over. And the walls come back up and your thrice-damned thoughts come rushing back in and that blissful nothingness is just the faintest blissful memory.

Or the dynamics between "Lizzy and Annie," two Brooklyn trans girls negotiating their own uncertainty and fears to find love with one another, bouncing from bar to bed to breakfast all whilst ducking the attentions of chasers and the leering stares of their coworkers. Or the unnamed narrator of "How to Stay Friends" out for dinner with her ex for the first time since transitioning and simultaneously wanting to make a good new "first impression" and deconstructing everything that you did wrong and regret while you were dating and trying to maintain the facade of being a virile straight man. That particular story hit a little close to home and necessitated me putting the book down for a few minutes to catch my breath and get some distance from the material before returning. We all have those things we really regret from the times before transitioning, but it's always a bit disconcerting to see your own thoughts writ so clearly upon the page.

By far my favorite story is the largest, "Not Bleak," about Carla, a trans girl living in a small Mid-Western town near the Canadian border working at a book store and her friendship with Zeke, a mennonite trans girl who may or may not have stolen her hormones and her passport but who also really needed a friend and a community. Carla, ever of the warm heart and willing to extend the benefit of the doubt becomes close with her to the point of posing as her girlfriend and returning with Zeke to the small Mennonite community she grew up in so she could see her grandfather before he passed. Zeke utterly broke my heart, this poor little trans girl who was willing to hide her identity and be seen as a boy so as to preserve the links she had with her family. This girl who needs support so badly but who is her own worst enemy and continually brings people to distrust her. I want to say more but I don't want to spoil the story, but Plett's portrayal of an insular small-town queer community where everyone knows one another and has for years and how the lack of anything to do leads to some enormously silly hijinks in the name of entertaining yourself is absolutely spot-on. Of all the stories, this is the one that I've come back to and read several times more.

These stories are all about trans characters, which I love because there's a frightening lack of creative work by and about girls like me, but they appeal to a much larger crowd as well- those of us who have ever stood on the outside of a party and watched the interplay between people and wondering why it seemed so easy for everyone else, those of us who have ever dealt with fear, anxiety, or isolation, those of us who have ever gotten sloppily drunk in order to feel more at ease in social situations. Plett has an amazing eye for the fragile foibles nestled within everyone's hearts and I think that any reader, trans or cis, can connect with her characters. This is her first collection, but I'm certainly hoping it's not her last as Casey Plett's voice is one that is desperately needed within the realm of fiction. Her stories are the sort that I long to read. I don't know that I could ever recommend a book more highly.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my god, I FUCKING LOVED THIS BOOK. Full review to come!!

Here's the review!

Around this time last year, I read an amazing debut short story collection by Nancy Jo Cullen that I raved about, saying it was the best fiction I’d read all year. There must be something in the air in late July, because I just read Winnipegger Casey Plett’s book A Safe Girl to Love—also a debut short story collection—and I just fucking loved it. In fact, both books share a keen sense of place, an authentic, diverse human (and non-human) cast, and a liberal dose of fun, bitterness, heartbreak, sex, misery, and love.

Above all else what I feel like Plett really excels at in A Safe Girl to Love is that she really gets lots of different kinds of people....

Every word of Plett’s writing is understated but packs a walloping, forceful impact, just when you’re not expecting it. I think Plett has gone well beyond the call of The Collection editors to feature trans characters as agents of their own destiny–although she certainly has done that. She has written trans women as complex, fascinating but regular human beings–in both the good and the bad ways–with humour, passion, and intelligence. That’s the kind of people I want to read about and the kind of author whose work I look forward to.

(Oh yeah, did I mention one story has a TALKING CAT in it? Just in case you weren’t sold already.)

See the full review here: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wor...

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars for A Safe Girl to date (audiobook) by Casey Plett read by the author.

It was interesting getting to hear the author’s perspective as a trans woman going through life. This book is about several of her experiences with family and friends as she tries to fit in.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll need to reflect more on this, but for now: A brutally honest look into the trans perspective (well, a white trans experience). Some of these stories were far too similar to one another, but I did think the second half of the collection was a lot stronger than the first (things changed up a bit).

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short fiction collection. My favourite was the Equality Manifesto— it was short and the satirical tone was pitch perfect.

In the other stories a blurry succession of tall girls wake up hungover and then, again, drink too much. So blurry.

Despite everything tall girl never goes to AA or reaches out for help or shows much self-awareness. Not one of the stories ever has anything to do with perhaps drinking less. But there sure is lots of blackout drinking. Wake up and repeat. Some people write down their dreams; this collection felt like someone writing down their hangovers.

[Sarah Cavar]

I am a huge fan of Plett and can't be relied on not to inflate this collection's rating, so I decline to give one. A Safe Girl to Love is noticeably rougher, angrier, and bitterer than her later work –– sometimes, this worked for me, and other times, it didn't. While this collection wasn't a slam dunk, I find immense value in reading it, particularly in the context of Plett's career as a writer who weaves between the speculative and the literary, the commercial and the slightly-more-obscure. We see in this collection threads she will address more fully in later texts.

A Dream of A Woman floored me, and I adored Little Fish, too. I can't say this one excited me as much, but I"m glad I read it. If you're interested in the history and trajectory of trans lit, especially trans canlit, and/or want to complete Plett's bibliography, give this one a try!

[Jeanne Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essentially every story in this collection is a door opened, a clear movement into a new area for trans literature to explore. They're also all great. Just this prodigious, ambitious talent that's also fantastically kind, about spaces and situations that it'd be very easy to simplify, to make efficient to navigate with. Casey Plett totally resists that temptation, leaves situations as messy as reality, and finds a way to navigate them anyway with grace and delicacy--and with a raucous wildness that's held in reserve until ideal moments. It's pretty great and you oughta read it!

[Iris · Rating 4 out of 5]

really 4.5 stars but goodreads’ rating system sucks

the first half feels a little by-the-numbers? but only if you’ve read a lot of other transfem literature, which doesn’t describe a lot of people lol. Plett starts off strong with “Other Women” (which is an excellent title for a story about a trans woman btw), but really hits new heights in the second half of the book. I thought this review would end up being a rant about how much I loved “Not Bleak,” but then “Winning” came along and did even better.

in “Winning,” Plett explores the dynamic between a young trans woman, Zoe, and her mother, Sandy, who is also a trans woman (and who started transitioning before Zoe was even born). the relationship between these two characters was excellently fleshed out and, by the end, really started digging into the generational differences between how trans women understand their own experiences and identities. at one point, Sandy warns her daughter that other people will be able to tell she “used to be a man,” to which Zoe declares she was never a man. this prompts the following rant from Sandy:

“Sandy snort-laughed then she choked. Then she laughed, kinda unable to breathe for a few seconds: A-ha! A-ha! A-ha! She sounded like she was trying to pass something. Ohhhh my God! You think you just stopped being my son, don’t you? she said. Do you think that’s how it works?! Do you think you went to a fucking wizard?!”

this is actually really interesting because it illustrates a big difference between how transition was considered in the late 20th century and how it’s considered now. from the 70s to 90s, the terms “FtM” and “MtF” (female-to-male and male-to-female) were honestly the most common way for trans people to refer to themselves and to others in their communities. baked into the use of these terms is the assumption that trans women used to be men, but then transitioned into women. nowadays, partially because of increasing acceptance of nonbinary identities, we’re more likely to understand the human body as non-gendered, meaning that a trans woman can be considered a woman even before undergoing transition. what’s refreshing about Plett’s depiction of this generational divide is that she doesn’t feel the need to comment on it: she simply depicts it in Sandy and Zoe’s relationship, and lets the reader reflect on what those conflicts might mean. though I personally align with the modern understanding of trans womanhood, it was really interesting to see the older view explored as well in this story, especially because trans history is so often covered up and erased.

anyway, this ended up being an excellent read. realistic and understated and at times deeply moving.

(as a side note, every time a trans character says something like “I decided to come out after 6 months of being on hormones” I realize that I am very much doing this transition thing The Hard Way. which isn’t a problem lol, but it is kind of funny)

[Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot for the life of me remember who recommended this book to me, but I'm glad I got it. It's a collection of short stories all featuring trans main characters. The majority of the stories are set in various parts of Canada, New York City or the Pacific Northwest, all places I believe that author has also lived. These are stories of relationships, some sexy, some messy, most complicated- relationships with lovers, exes, parents, friends, pets and cities. My favorite story was the longest one which takes up the center part of the book, "Not Bleak". The narrator is Carla, a bookstore manager, who lives with a long term open partner, Liam, who is funny, slutty, and very kind. I loved the dynamic between the two of them perhaps most of all the couples in the whole book. Liam and Carla often host young queer kids, many of whom have been kicked out by their families. They let these kids sleep on their couch until they get their barrings in the new city and can find a job and place to stay. They host a kid named Zeke who has not yet decided if they are a boy or a girl, but seems nice, followed by a much less respectful guest who Carla barely talks to. A few days later, Liam realizes their passports have been stolen, as well as some other items. They confront Zeke over it, but she has no idea what they are talking about. It ends up being just another shitty break and life goes on. But then Zeke starts hanging out at Carla's bookstore, asking for reading recommendations and inviting her to lunch. Then Zeke asks Carla a huge favor, the kind that Carla has no interest in fulfilling, except she kind of can't say no. And the story spins out from there. You have to pick up the book if you want to know what happens next :)

[Bonnie G. · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of my New Year's resolutions was to finally read some of the physical books that have been roosting on my shelves. One bad thing that has come from Goodreads use is that I am constantly being exposed to new and shiny things I want to read, and the books I already own get dustier and dustier, essentially acting as a decorating theme. So I started with the short stories pile, and for the second time in two days I am abandoning a collection early on and consigning the books to the giveaway pile. Yesterday I got three stories in to Drinking Coffee Elsewhere before I cut bait without a rating. Today I got only two stories into A Safe Girl to Love before crying uncle but this time I am including a star rating. That first book had some moments, some beautiful sentences, that egged me on to keep reading, that told me the writer had real talent, but perhaps lacked the bravery necessary to write great things. This book did not tell me that I was in the hands of a potentially good writer. What it did tell me is that I was in the hands of an adult with the emotional life of a 12 year old. The first two stories in the book are terrible. I hate to say that, but seriously, they are awful. The prose is bad, the narrative voice is consistently put-upon, angry and whiny with a soupcon of martyr complex. There are some good reviews here, and presumably they are not all friends of Ms. Plett. That said, perhaps I would start with her later book(s) in the hopes that she has improved with time.

[tri ܁ ˖ ♬⋆.˚]

loved!!!!! absolutely adore how casey plett so succinctly puts her finger — or her pen, as it were — down on the oft bleakness & rudderlessness of the transfeminine perspective. i can't really explain it well but the out-of-place-ness and loneliness of these stories really struck a chord in me. it certainly makes u wonder: what happens when someone is so totally surrounded by people, yet so soundly rejected from the majority of their company ? her heroines' thoughtless resilience also felt extremely relatable as well. they have had no choice but to grow a second skin, a sort of reverse pupa if you will, so that the myriad of indignities they suffer simply do not get to them, or at least not by much. i relate to that. a lot.

i really enjoyed the exploration of emotionally dysfunctional, terrifyingly more-than-slightly abusive mother-daughter relationships between trans mother and trans daughter in winning, which also contained some thoughts i've been having recently. i really like this quote from the not bleak, whose heroine i love because she's so fucking real, because it put to pen a sentiment i've felt at times:

I can’t make sense of why it ate at me, all the desire in this house, blowing past me like wind.

i enjoyed this slightly more than little fish. i think she does/did short stories better. 1 criticism i do have though is how the whiteness of her characters sometimes shines through; there were a few imperialist talking points/views being thrown around, and not a single character of colour in sight.... as far as i could tell

[Billy ⋆｡･☽･⋆* (semi-hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐️.
Rtc.

[Hal Schrieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been meaning to read this for a while and finally got around to it!

I think the main reason it took so long was because I have an aversion at this point to stories where the central struggles are around being trans and the couple stories I opened up to when looking this over in 2015 indicated that pretty much every story was like a different intro-to-trans story. Some of the stories in this book are like that—the “trans girlfriends getting drunk too much who face street harrassment” story, the “you are going to old navy alone and sad” story.

I think this is a great book to read and to offer people if you are early in transition or are new to literature about trans people not written by Anne Carson or Maggie Nelson. It is homey, homely, gritty , Michelle Tea inspired, non highfalutin fiction centered around a lot of trans girl protagonists who are varying levels of punk and varying levels of self aware. It’s not quite Valencia because nobody’s actually that self destructive, but it does have a resonance and a vibe.

in terms of a first short story collection centered on transness I think that it really expands its scope in a satisfying way as it goes on and tries out more complex issues and plots as it progresses. As with everyone else reviewing this, I love “not bleak” and I loved the talking cat story and I love the story about Zoe going home from brooklyn to live with her trans mom in Eugene, OR. I felt like as the book went on Plett’s ability to take on a variety of themes and lives expanded and the real thought and heart behind the stories began to really shine through.

The critiques I have are mainly that while Plett is a master of characterization, the variety of the characters in this book is, even in the longer stories, restricted to a set of similar twenty to thirtysomething white or implied-to-be-white people who are broke and work in bookstores and retail and live in different places but have similar lifestyles and similarly insular world views. It is notable that almost all her characters are trapped in stuffy interiors and shitty apartments, constantly pushing open windows to cold blasts of air. As a theme it sort of works, but I keep expecting her to push further or past it. I think with many of the longer stories Plett pushes the edges of this kind of set of parameters and creates a really satisfying larger world, but it still reads like a reflection on a hyper specific subculture. Which like, is true of a lot of short story collections, and as far as that goes I will take this story collection over one by a Columbia grad any day, but I hope with her next novel or story Plett takes us further afield from the claustrophobic world of Safe Girl.

[Andie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I once heard a trans woman at a bar say that you can bring up Casey Plett to any transfeminine person, and instantly have something to bond over. Funnily enough, I heard this while I was out with a trans friend, who had lent me three other Casey Plett books after we both fawned over her writing.

All this to say, I'm a fan. A Safe Girl to Love is the first book I've read by Casey Plett. It's a short story collection that, in my opinion, captures a particular transgender angst that is hard to put into words. And I'm a sucker for any writer who can capture that modus vivendi, that sort of vibe, that is intrinsic in being a trans woman who is alive, moving around in the world.

These stories are mostly slice of life pieces. One of them depicts a girl going out to dinner with an ex, who she hasn't seen since transitioning. Another is from a perspective of a cat, whose owner is a call girl. In another story, a trans girl changes in "boymode" before she visits her dying grandfather who she isn't out to. Hell, the opening story depicts a cis friend pushing past a trans woman's sexual boundaries.

While reading these stories, it felt like I was "home." I don't know if that makes any sense, but for once, I'm reading characters who move through the world like me. It's actual, faithful, trans girl representation, with the same sort of problems and emotions.

I will say this, this book features that quirky "I don't use quotation marks," style that Cormac Mccarthy uses. Casey stops doing it in later works. Personally I don't mind it, but it can be divisive.

[Jade Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this, i held it to my chest with my arms crossed over it, thinking about the inevitable re-readings of it i would do. Casey. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[tara bomp · Rating 5 out of 5]

maybe this just hit me at the exact right time, I dunno. it feels so heartbreaking every story. they're all set in the same sort of millieu with the same sorts of characters and themes but I think it's ok to seemingly tell the same sort of story over and over but each time it's like a little bit different like reflections in a mirror ball. it's all about being lonely and isolated and trying to make connections and being trans is part of what makes it so hard but it's not really why, it's something that's hard to define that's part of life. she has lots of people she knows, friends, partners, people she has sex with, but she's always looking for something else from someone she can't quite have, not in the way she wants. other people are distant even as they're close. you wonder who you are even when you're certain. you reach out for something even though it's not there

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the tightest most readable strongly voiced prose I've read in a long time. Lots of everyday kinky sex, which I don't actually see that often in queer lit. Highlights for me included the lezzie ones, the one where the cat talks, and the one with the Mennonite grandpa & passport theft.

[Isobel · Rating 5 out of 5]

v much enjoyed these!! compelling nuanced characters and relationships. just spent so much time reading instead of writing the papers that i should be writing because i was too invested to put the book away.

[Kiara Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Verschieden Short Stories über Trans Personen
Ist auf jeden fall eins der besseren Bücher wo über Mtf Personen geschrieben wird war aber manchmal ein bisschen schleppend zu lesen

[Roz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In just a handful of stories, Plett’s fiction goes across the country, from hip bars in New York to snow-buried apartments in the heartland to cloud-covered neighborhoods in Oregon. Her characters all struggle in some way; sometimes they get it together, but not always. Things get dicey, but I never got a feeling like they were hopeless.

And maybe the thing about her fiction is the thing she doesn’t do: patronize. Her characters, mostly trans women, exist fully formed. They’re not one-dimensional cutouts there to prop up stereotypes, they’re not window dressing. And, the more I think about it, the more it seems exactly the point.

Her stories pick up on these ideas, the forming of identity and coping and what happens after (or, in one exception, before) people transition. Again, the journey isn’t central and you can see how her arguments work in her fiction. The stories are about people and what happens after everyone says “Oh, you’re so brave,” or “Wow, that’s inspiring.” They’re about living. Sometimes it means doing sex work on top of a regular job (“Portland, Oregon”), sometimes it means a messy relationship (“Lizzie and Annie”) and sometimes it means taking the first nervous steps (“Twenty Hot Tips to Shopping Success”).

The knockout story here is “Not Bleak,” which follows two women on a trip up to Mennonite country in rural Manitoba. Plett vividly captures the setting and attitude and even the language of the prairies. At times, it felt almost cinematic. But it also captures a feeling of being out of place; Zeke comes from a world that doesn’t disapprove of trans people, but can’t even process they exist; in the absence of understanding is a void of even recognition. Or as Plett writes:

“Zeke opened the door and I jerked face up from my hands.
Woah, I said.
Her face, so naturally calm, suddenly moved into an expression of glumness. Yeah, she said.
She was in shirtsleeves and grey cotton pants, and her shoulder-length black hair was neatly slicked back. Zeke was on the pale side to begin with – which is saying something for our stupid corner of the world – but with her soft girl-body, already so unassuming, and now passing for a boy, she looked truly ghostly. Like she was a wraith, something you could put a hand through.” (pg 145)

At the same time, there are moments of levity. Between the larger stories are smaller changes of pace: a guide to buying female clothing, a manifesto on true literary equality (“Sarah Schulman next to David Sedaris!,” shouts the narrator) among others.

All in all, a great debut by a great new voice. Recommended!

[Teacup · Rating 5 out of 5]

What to even say about this collection? I'd use the word "heartbreaking," which is accurate, but that might make it seem as though the whole sum of it is trans girl tragedy, which is not at all accurate. The threat of transmisogynistic violence, whether emotional, sexual, or physical, from complete strangers or friends and intimate partners... it's CONSTANT in these stories. It's simultaneously just a casual facet of daily life for the characters and a looming presence that shapes everything, at the exact same time. So I both want to say that there's so much more to these stories, and to the lives of trans women, than that violence, but also that the violence MATTERS. It's not trite to name it and explore it, and it's not about tragedy or pity. Lots of these characters aren't "good" or "pure" victims - they get drunk, do drugs, are horny, have kinky sex, do sex work, antagonize transphobes.. all those things about which victim-blamers like to say "see, you had it coming." And it's a huge deal that they get to be portrayed as messy humans and not perfect angels who can do no harm.

Anyway. Perhaps the best way to sum up my feelings about this book is.. not that it crawled its way into my heart and stayed there, but that it revealed a spot that was already there. And now when I think of it, I just feel it there, next to my heart, warm and close. What else can there be to say about it?

[Q · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some gorgeous stories in this somewhat uneven collection. I loved "Not Bleak", "Winning", "Lizzy & Annie" and "Other Women" (which I'd already read in Topside's anthology The Collection). I was really touched by the characters in these four stories, the richly rendered relationships - between a young woman and her mother who is also a trans woman, between old and new friends, between lovers - and the vivid sense of place. They feel meticulously paced to create this feeling of being young in a wide, cold place, and the sort of expansive, untethered, anxious hope I associate with that kind of landscape.

It might just be that I've come to prefer longer short stories where the characters have a more time to unfurl and bloom. Though sometimes I still really love brief but powerful stories. But the shorter pieces here feel sketchy, lightweight. Less satisfying. I especially felt that "Youth" was a weak piece to end with, and too similar in its emotional range to "A Carried Ocean Breeze" which I liked more. "Real Equality: A Manifesto" is not a bad piece in itself but a weird fit with the other stories - it kind of makes it feel like a portfolio of the author's writing rather than a cohesive collection.

Definitely worth reading.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was moved by all of these stories and their characters, which are written in a kind of punk/grassroots realism that hits maybe between Michelle Tea and Imogen Binnie: slice of life with a lot of wry humor and one talking cat. The main thing that is notable from a political angle is that this book collects stories about trans women across a wide spectrum of identities and experiences, none of them constructed as either miserably abject or reductively "empowered." One of my favorites explores the relationship and tensions between a mother and daughter, both of whom are trans. Written with love and care; an important book.

[Dynah Thirst · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of boring.

[Sawyer Lovett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite collection of short fiction.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me laugh and made me cry! Loved it!!

Edit: Loved the audiobook too! Narrated by the author!

[Megan O'Hara · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read most of this in 2 sittings after finding out it's one of the books they found in Chelsea Manning's cell and sent her to solitary for 🙃 anyway, the protagonist of every story felt the same which i quite dislike in a short story collection. BUT it's gotta be the first time the protag is always a trans bookstore clerk who likes her nipples obliterated and who am i to argue against that really

[amanda macchiarola · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars!

a lot of really great stories in here, my favorites being “lizzy and annie”, “not bleak”, and “how to stay friends”. i felt like some of the other ones went on a bit longer than necessary, but overall still a really solid collection! very much in the same vein of michelle tea’s or emily zhou’s writing which i found enjoyable.

[Emily Perkovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plett’s writing always feels so tangible and real to me. I unsurprisingly loved this, though I do wish I had read it before her other works as it seems there is a definitive amount of progression in her writing voice. Thank you to Arsenal Pulp for the complimentary copy.