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Erik the Pink
Erik has wanted to be a father for as long as he can remember -- but now that the day is finally here, he's terrified. Surely a ham-fisted Viking of a man like Erik shouldn't be allowed to handle things as tiny and delicate as his new baby girl?
But it's not just his daughter that's come into Erik's world. His partner has finally returned too. After nine months of watching Andreas struggle with the mental and physical toll of being a man and being pregnant at the same time, the birth of their daughter is both a beginning and an ending.
Erik is a father for the first time -- but not everything that comes next is new.
But it's not just his daughter that's come into Erik's world. His partner has finally returned too. After nine months of watching Andreas struggle with the mental and physical toll of being a man and being pregnant at the same time, the birth of their daughter is both a beginning and an ending.
Erik is a father for the first time -- but not everything that comes next is new.
212 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 30, 2018
4 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
Matthew J. Metzger
34 books351 followersMatthew is an asexual, transgender author from the wet and windy British Isles.
Matt writes LGBT novels, both adult and young adult, and particularly enjoys digging into the weird and wonderful diversity of people all across the sexuality and gender spectrums. When not writing, Matt is usually asleep, or crunching numbers at his day job. Free time is not really a concept here.
He is also owned by an enormous black cat. Approach with caution.
Matt writes LGBT novels, both adult and young adult, and particularly enjoys digging into the weird and wonderful diversity of people all across the sexuality and gender spectrums. When not writing, Matt is usually asleep, or crunching numbers at his day job. Free time is not really a concept here.
He is also owned by an enormous black cat. Approach with caution.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
July 13, 2018
Well, look at that. A trans mpreg story. Guess it turns out you can write those and still have a compelling story. Amazing. Can’t believe that Metzger cracked this oh so elusive code that has kept the writers of the hundreds of mpreg stories before it so flummoxed.
(…*sigh* No, don’t worry, I’m not going to be a snarky asshole for the rest of the review. Just thought I would get it out of the way. Also, I am aware that Metzger is not the first one to write a trans mpreg story, but he is certainly the first author of any note that I have come across to do so. If you have names of books or authors who you think also have done a good job with the idea, feel free to leave them in the comments, I’d love to check them out.)
Erik the Pink is for all intents and purposes, a fairly light, and at times ridiculously sweet, story about Erik and his partner Andreas as they live out the first year of their daughter’s life. Erik, who has never really had a family since his mother abandoned him when he was 18 months old, is struggling with the joys and fears of being a new dad. Andreas, more confident in the care and feeding of new-born babies, is however struggling to come back from nine months of pregnancy and the tole that has taken on his body and his mind. While not strictly a story about Andreas being pregnant–the story begins on the day of his daughter’s birth–it does deal with the aftermath and depression that Andreas has to deal with as a result.
Outside the fact that I usually pick up anything this author throws out into the world, I have been keeping an eye out for this story since Metzger mentioned on twitter that it might be a possibility for an upcoming novel. Mostly for one reason: trans mpreg. An inexplicably hard things to find in the book market. (Ok, I have several explanations, but I swore to give up my asshole ways for the rest of the review, so you’ll just have to ponder this one on your own.) And while I would not fully classify this story as mpreg since there is very little story time focused on the actual pregnancy while it happens, it does an excellent job, I feel, of talking about Andreas’ pregnancy in a relatable, and realistic, way. Which I found incredibly refreshing.
See, I’ve never been a huge fan of mpreg. Mostly because I find the whole pregnancy thing rather horrifying in general, and rather boring in reading. There are only so many times I can read 200 pages of what feels like a checklist of pregnancy symptoms before I want to throw myself into a ditch and play dead. There have been, of course, exceptions to this (I read the first two books in Ann-Katrin Byrde’s Mercy Hills Pack series and rather enjoyed them) but on the whole it is a sub-genre that I tend to avoid. But it does come up rather a lot lately in fanfiction fandoms I read from, so I would say I have read enough stories to at least have a good feel for the trope.
It has always perplexed me, though, that very few (and I mean I could probably count them on one hand) ever really bother to consider what it is like to be pregnant and male. They certainly like to go into what it is like to be pregnant, but I’m not sure that many authors ever really consider–or simply don’t want to go into–the ways that being both those things at the same time can really fuck with your head. And maybe it is because I will naturally come at these stories from a trans perspective, and so can’t get away from putting myself into these stories in a way most readers won’t, but it always seems like the clash of physical and mental is severely underplayed. Being trans, having to deal with those two warring sections of myself on a daily basis, has I think made me wish that more authors of mpreg would delve into this aspect of their stories (when it fits the world they have created) and a little sad when I find the male characters dealing with pregnancy feel more like thinly-veiled avatars for the female readership, than a real attempt to dig into what it would be like to have to deal with pregnancy while having the societal, physical, or internal expectations of being male.
Metzger did an excellent job at tackling that problem, though. In a way I relate to as a trans man, but also just as a reader. There is clearly always going to be some part of me that identifies with Andreas simply by fact that we share a queer gender identity, but he is also just very well written. And I found the way that his dysphoria issues–or as he calls it, his dizzy days–are written and referenced in such a way that I think people who don’t have to deal with this on a daily basis can understand as well. It is sometimes hard to put into words what daily life can be like for a trans person, but I really liked the simple yet heartfelt way it is handled here.
And not to be forgotten, Erik is a total sweetie. I was extremely happy with how Erik was written. Not the least because while I didn’t end up hating it, Metzger’s last book (Big Man) was not my favorite depiction of an overweight character ever written. The fact that Erik is allowed to simply exist here as a person, and that his weight is not really a factor at all in this story in any meaningful way, was really fucking nice. His weight was treated like a character trait, not his entire character. And, yes, Andreas and Erik had some really nice chemistry going on between them. I don’t think I personally would care for Andreas constant snark, but Erik clearly adores it and the reader can easily tell. It is the same way with how obvious it is that Andreas adores the way Erik looks, feels, acts, and simply is. It never once felt like either of them settled for the other. They fit in a way that makes no sense on paper (especially the paper most romance novels are written on), but which is simply fact of their lives.
This book is obviously a character-driven story, so if you are looking for something with a lot of plot, you ain’t going to find it here. But it is ridiculously sweet, yet not in a way that smothers reality when it is needed in a scene. I had a lot of fun reading this, and like most of his books, it is clearly going on the reread pile to pick up again.
This book was provided free in exchange for a fair and honest review for Love Bytes. Go there to check out other reviews, author interviews, and all those awesome giveaways. Click below.
(…*sigh* No, don’t worry, I’m not going to be a snarky asshole for the rest of the review. Just thought I would get it out of the way. Also, I am aware that Metzger is not the first one to write a trans mpreg story, but he is certainly the first author of any note that I have come across to do so. If you have names of books or authors who you think also have done a good job with the idea, feel free to leave them in the comments, I’d love to check them out.)
Erik the Pink is for all intents and purposes, a fairly light, and at times ridiculously sweet, story about Erik and his partner Andreas as they live out the first year of their daughter’s life. Erik, who has never really had a family since his mother abandoned him when he was 18 months old, is struggling with the joys and fears of being a new dad. Andreas, more confident in the care and feeding of new-born babies, is however struggling to come back from nine months of pregnancy and the tole that has taken on his body and his mind. While not strictly a story about Andreas being pregnant–the story begins on the day of his daughter’s birth–it does deal with the aftermath and depression that Andreas has to deal with as a result.
Outside the fact that I usually pick up anything this author throws out into the world, I have been keeping an eye out for this story since Metzger mentioned on twitter that it might be a possibility for an upcoming novel. Mostly for one reason: trans mpreg. An inexplicably hard things to find in the book market. (Ok, I have several explanations, but I swore to give up my asshole ways for the rest of the review, so you’ll just have to ponder this one on your own.) And while I would not fully classify this story as mpreg since there is very little story time focused on the actual pregnancy while it happens, it does an excellent job, I feel, of talking about Andreas’ pregnancy in a relatable, and realistic, way. Which I found incredibly refreshing.
See, I’ve never been a huge fan of mpreg. Mostly because I find the whole pregnancy thing rather horrifying in general, and rather boring in reading. There are only so many times I can read 200 pages of what feels like a checklist of pregnancy symptoms before I want to throw myself into a ditch and play dead. There have been, of course, exceptions to this (I read the first two books in Ann-Katrin Byrde’s Mercy Hills Pack series and rather enjoyed them) but on the whole it is a sub-genre that I tend to avoid. But it does come up rather a lot lately in fanfiction fandoms I read from, so I would say I have read enough stories to at least have a good feel for the trope.
It has always perplexed me, though, that very few (and I mean I could probably count them on one hand) ever really bother to consider what it is like to be pregnant and male. They certainly like to go into what it is like to be pregnant, but I’m not sure that many authors ever really consider–or simply don’t want to go into–the ways that being both those things at the same time can really fuck with your head. And maybe it is because I will naturally come at these stories from a trans perspective, and so can’t get away from putting myself into these stories in a way most readers won’t, but it always seems like the clash of physical and mental is severely underplayed. Being trans, having to deal with those two warring sections of myself on a daily basis, has I think made me wish that more authors of mpreg would delve into this aspect of their stories (when it fits the world they have created) and a little sad when I find the male characters dealing with pregnancy feel more like thinly-veiled avatars for the female readership, than a real attempt to dig into what it would be like to have to deal with pregnancy while having the societal, physical, or internal expectations of being male.
Metzger did an excellent job at tackling that problem, though. In a way I relate to as a trans man, but also just as a reader. There is clearly always going to be some part of me that identifies with Andreas simply by fact that we share a queer gender identity, but he is also just very well written. And I found the way that his dysphoria issues–or as he calls it, his dizzy days–are written and referenced in such a way that I think people who don’t have to deal with this on a daily basis can understand as well. It is sometimes hard to put into words what daily life can be like for a trans person, but I really liked the simple yet heartfelt way it is handled here.
And not to be forgotten, Erik is a total sweetie. I was extremely happy with how Erik was written. Not the least because while I didn’t end up hating it, Metzger’s last book (Big Man) was not my favorite depiction of an overweight character ever written. The fact that Erik is allowed to simply exist here as a person, and that his weight is not really a factor at all in this story in any meaningful way, was really fucking nice. His weight was treated like a character trait, not his entire character. And, yes, Andreas and Erik had some really nice chemistry going on between them. I don’t think I personally would care for Andreas constant snark, but Erik clearly adores it and the reader can easily tell. It is the same way with how obvious it is that Andreas adores the way Erik looks, feels, acts, and simply is. It never once felt like either of them settled for the other. They fit in a way that makes no sense on paper (especially the paper most romance novels are written on), but which is simply fact of their lives.
This book is obviously a character-driven story, so if you are looking for something with a lot of plot, you ain’t going to find it here. But it is ridiculously sweet, yet not in a way that smothers reality when it is needed in a scene. I had a lot of fun reading this, and like most of his books, it is clearly going on the reread pile to pick up again.
This book was provided free in exchange for a fair and honest review for Love Bytes. Go there to check out other reviews, author interviews, and all those awesome giveaways. Click below.
July 31, 2018
This story brackets the other end of trans guy pregnancy from Married Ones - although the two couples are not the same, they have significant similarities and I was glad I read them in that order. In this book we meet Erik, a big, solid, workingman whose trans boyfriend just gave him their longed for baby daughter. For Erik, brought up in care homes where nothing and no one was ever his to keep, this man and this child are the family he so desperately wanted, and thought he'd never find.
For his boyfriend Andreas, the baby is a cherished and beloved addition to his life. But nine months of pregnancy have rubbed his nose in every aspect of his assigned-at-birth gender that's hard to handle, from constant mis-gendering to feminization of his own body. The fact that Erik is pan, and is attracted to Andreas no matter how he presents, adds a little difficulty even as Erik does his very best to be totally supportive. Andreas is recovering from the birth not just physically, but in grappling with new dimensions to his dysphoria.
Erik is a huge softy, who wants to be the best guy ever for his loved ones. But he has never had anything to do with babies, and his tiny daughter seems fragile in his big clumsy hands. His boyfriend's prickly recovery also can be hurt by clumsy words. Erik is doing all he can to get it all right, and share his heartfelt contentment with the two people at the center of it. The lonely kid from the care homes is determined to make a family that will never fall apart. This book has great characters and real situations that never become overdone angst, and the love is palpable. As an added bonus, Erik's weight is never an issue for angst, and his boyfriend likes him big and solid.
For his boyfriend Andreas, the baby is a cherished and beloved addition to his life. But nine months of pregnancy have rubbed his nose in every aspect of his assigned-at-birth gender that's hard to handle, from constant mis-gendering to feminization of his own body. The fact that Erik is pan, and is attracted to Andreas no matter how he presents, adds a little difficulty even as Erik does his very best to be totally supportive. Andreas is recovering from the birth not just physically, but in grappling with new dimensions to his dysphoria.
Erik is a huge softy, who wants to be the best guy ever for his loved ones. But he has never had anything to do with babies, and his tiny daughter seems fragile in his big clumsy hands. His boyfriend's prickly recovery also can be hurt by clumsy words. Erik is doing all he can to get it all right, and share his heartfelt contentment with the two people at the center of it. The lonely kid from the care homes is determined to make a family that will never fall apart. This book has great characters and real situations that never become overdone angst, and the love is palpable. As an added bonus, Erik's weight is never an issue for angst, and his boyfriend likes him big and solid.
August 1, 2018
4.5 Stars
There is so much to adore about this love story of family set just as the baby has come. This book is gritty in some of the best depictions of after delivery and infant care I have ever read in a romance.
My eyes ache with the vivid memory.
And then weave so gracefully the hormone saturated (parental ones as well as others) and so love that flows between Erik and Andreas.
Erik is a plain joe and big. He struggles to point himself in Andreas point of view a trans man who just had a baby because he can't but oh the love and the safety and the being there.
And Andreas feeling all the contradictory feelings while battling the body dysmorphia of his form for the pregnancy.
Each character so well render and the love. I did wish we could have gone back to the start of their romance with more detail. This falling in love and then this period so rarely documented no matter what the gender and sexuality of the couple would have made for and even stronger read.
But, what is here is to be cherished.
There is so much to adore about this love story of family set just as the baby has come. This book is gritty in some of the best depictions of after delivery and infant care I have ever read in a romance.
My eyes ache with the vivid memory.
And then weave so gracefully the hormone saturated (parental ones as well as others) and so love that flows between Erik and Andreas.
Erik is a plain joe and big. He struggles to point himself in Andreas point of view a trans man who just had a baby because he can't but oh the love and the safety and the being there.
And Andreas feeling all the contradictory feelings while battling the body dysmorphia of his form for the pregnancy.
Each character so well render and the love. I did wish we could have gone back to the start of their romance with more detail. This falling in love and then this period so rarely documented no matter what the gender and sexuality of the couple would have made for and even stronger read.
But, what is here is to be cherished.
July 27, 2018
Well, I wish mpreg fans would read this. It’s a warm cocoa mug of a book, but also an insightful one. If you were a transman, how would you feel having just given birth? No matter how much you wanted a child, it probably wouldn’t be great.
Reading this as an American, well, whoa. The characters get weeks and weeks of parental leave. Neither has a particularly demanding job, but they can afford a small house and a vacation by a sunny foreign beach. Nobody worries about medical costs or insurance. Must be nice. :-).
This is my second book by the author. Both are written well enough that you are drawn in and everything feels very real. And there are darling, loving men in both. They also contain utterly crap parents and a theme of near-hopeless yearning for family connections. This one is low of sex overall, and the bedroom door is kept shut. It works for the book - nobody feels sexy after giving birth.
I liked it.
Reading this as an American, well, whoa. The characters get weeks and weeks of parental leave. Neither has a particularly demanding job, but they can afford a small house and a vacation by a sunny foreign beach. Nobody worries about medical costs or insurance. Must be nice. :-).
This is my second book by the author. Both are written well enough that you are drawn in and everything feels very real. And there are darling, loving men in both. They also contain utterly crap parents and a theme of near-hopeless yearning for family connections. This one is low of sex overall, and the bedroom door is kept shut. It works for the book - nobody feels sexy after giving birth.
I liked it.
July 26, 2018
While this is a love story, it is more the story of a first year with a new baby and how much it can take for someone to bounce back from it. Andreas and Erik are an established couple who, as the book starts, are having their first baby. A girl, named Beatriz. Both of them have some trauma in their past. Erik is very English and was abandoned by his mother at 18 months and then bounced around foster homes until he aged out; Andreas is from Spain and was verbally abused and kicked out of his home when he came out to his family as trans. These two couldn’t be more different. Erik is a red-headed giant of a man who has wanted nothing more in his life than a family he could call his own. “He’d waited his entire life to be here, and the enormity of it threatened to burst him right out of his own body.” Andreas is slim, fashionable and has wanted nothing for than for his body to match who he really is and while he wanted a baby, the consequences to himself were really horrible. “Nine months of absolute hell-unimaginable hell, from the horrifically persistent misgendering to the disgusting betrayal of his own body.” His dysphoria was out of control, “…nine months of hating himself for hating being pregnant…”
Beatriz is everything Erik has dreamed of, except he’s too terrified to touch her. “She’s too small. I’ll break her.” Despite what he had to go through, Andreas does as well. “He’d been so scared it wouldn’t be worth it. But here she was. And despite all of his fears, he already know he loved her.”
There are a lot of baby details here so those who don’t like to read about children should be aware. There is sweetness to the point of overload at times, but for me it matched the enormity of what Erik was feeling. “Erik didn’t care it he looked a bit bonkers, having a cry while holding his baby and hugging his partner. He’d wanted her for his entire life – he was allowed to have a bit of a meltdown now she was actually here.”
What made the book more balanced in terms of the sugar was the incredible struggle Andreas was going through to try to get back to himself. He had already been struggling with dysphoria and now genital dysphoria has been added. “The dysphoria had taken everything from him – the gym, his job, the spa, Saturday mornings in coffee shops while Erik was at work, even going to the pub for an evening meal to walk home with Erik after he’d closed up for the night. Everything. And it had been a struggle to remember it hadn’t been Beatriz taking it all away, but himself.” I can’t even imagine the pain he had to go through to have this baby he’s always wanted so desperately that turns him into something he’s hated. He has always called the worst days his “dizzy days” and the pregnancy and aftermath are nearly all dizzy days. Erik knows he can’t understand but he tries so hard to make things easier for Andreas. He doesn’t look at just Beatriz as what he spent a lifetime waiting for but Andreas as well. He knows how much Andreas has struggled since starting to show. “And I miss you, and I know I can’t make it better because it’s all tangled up with your body and how it makes you feel, but I love you and I hate seeing you down, so I want to make you feel good for a bit, even if it’s just surface good.”
They have some great friends in Jo (a former foster sister of Erik’s), her husband, Mike, and Lauren. The airport broke my heart for Erik, I have to admit it. I know it was always to help Andreas but once in a while Erik’s feelings should be considered too. The dysphoria did affect him during the pregnancy as well. “It had been nine months of juggling his excitement with his partner’s horror. It had been nine months of trying desperately to navigate when he could be excited, when he had to pretend it wasn’t happening and when he had to consider the possibilities of termination without outright begging Andreas not to do it.” While maybe not as painful as what Andreas is going through, still painful.
The writing is very realistic and even without the added trauma of being trans, I appreciated the attitude toward being pregnant. Despite what some would have us believe, not everyone enjoys being pregnant. Some people hate it. That doesn’t mean hating the baby, Andreas shows that very well, but hating the process, what it does to your body, the aftermath of trying to get that body back while you are exhausted and trying to adjust to having this new person in your care. As a cisgender person I can’t speak for how much it would affect a trans man but I definitely was in the not loving pregnancy group. There were a few baby things that made me say “huh?” but those were minor. The major focus of this book was adjustments. Adjusting to a new life for all of them. Getting back to the real him for Andreas. I loved the reason for “Erik the Pink”, probably the sweetest thing in the whole book for “An abandoned, unwanted, unloved survivor.” The book is sweet without being overly fluffy. It ends on a high, hopeful note and I can only wish the best things for all of them.
Cover art, showing a baby held in gentle hands, conveys the feeling of the book well. Soft and sweet.
Beatriz is everything Erik has dreamed of, except he’s too terrified to touch her. “She’s too small. I’ll break her.” Despite what he had to go through, Andreas does as well. “He’d been so scared it wouldn’t be worth it. But here she was. And despite all of his fears, he already know he loved her.”
There are a lot of baby details here so those who don’t like to read about children should be aware. There is sweetness to the point of overload at times, but for me it matched the enormity of what Erik was feeling. “Erik didn’t care it he looked a bit bonkers, having a cry while holding his baby and hugging his partner. He’d wanted her for his entire life – he was allowed to have a bit of a meltdown now she was actually here.”
What made the book more balanced in terms of the sugar was the incredible struggle Andreas was going through to try to get back to himself. He had already been struggling with dysphoria and now genital dysphoria has been added. “The dysphoria had taken everything from him – the gym, his job, the spa, Saturday mornings in coffee shops while Erik was at work, even going to the pub for an evening meal to walk home with Erik after he’d closed up for the night. Everything. And it had been a struggle to remember it hadn’t been Beatriz taking it all away, but himself.” I can’t even imagine the pain he had to go through to have this baby he’s always wanted so desperately that turns him into something he’s hated. He has always called the worst days his “dizzy days” and the pregnancy and aftermath are nearly all dizzy days. Erik knows he can’t understand but he tries so hard to make things easier for Andreas. He doesn’t look at just Beatriz as what he spent a lifetime waiting for but Andreas as well. He knows how much Andreas has struggled since starting to show. “And I miss you, and I know I can’t make it better because it’s all tangled up with your body and how it makes you feel, but I love you and I hate seeing you down, so I want to make you feel good for a bit, even if it’s just surface good.”
They have some great friends in Jo (a former foster sister of Erik’s), her husband, Mike, and Lauren. The airport broke my heart for Erik, I have to admit it. I know it was always to help Andreas but once in a while Erik’s feelings should be considered too. The dysphoria did affect him during the pregnancy as well. “It had been nine months of juggling his excitement with his partner’s horror. It had been nine months of trying desperately to navigate when he could be excited, when he had to pretend it wasn’t happening and when he had to consider the possibilities of termination without outright begging Andreas not to do it.” While maybe not as painful as what Andreas is going through, still painful.
The writing is very realistic and even without the added trauma of being trans, I appreciated the attitude toward being pregnant. Despite what some would have us believe, not everyone enjoys being pregnant. Some people hate it. That doesn’t mean hating the baby, Andreas shows that very well, but hating the process, what it does to your body, the aftermath of trying to get that body back while you are exhausted and trying to adjust to having this new person in your care. As a cisgender person I can’t speak for how much it would affect a trans man but I definitely was in the not loving pregnancy group. There were a few baby things that made me say “huh?” but those were minor. The major focus of this book was adjustments. Adjusting to a new life for all of them. Getting back to the real him for Andreas. I loved the reason for “Erik the Pink”, probably the sweetest thing in the whole book for “An abandoned, unwanted, unloved survivor.” The book is sweet without being overly fluffy. It ends on a high, hopeful note and I can only wish the best things for all of them.
Cover art, showing a baby held in gentle hands, conveys the feeling of the book well. Soft and sweet.
August 3, 2018
A Joyfully Jay review.
5 stars
I love when an author is able to take us into the mind of a character and reveal to us those inner thoughts that impact the decisions that person makes. In this case, the story of what it’s like being a trans man who is desperate to continue physically transitioning after top surgery, but has been told repeatedly he is too invested in his feminine body is almost heartbreaking to read. When you add to that the fact he has gotten pregnant, not really knowing how much his dysphoria would make the pregnancy a living hell, well you have a compelling window into a life most of us will never know or truly understand.
Erik the Pink is a beautiful love story that centers not on just a couple, but a family who learns to love deeply and trust one another—to accept that life will never be easy, yet the challenges are made tolerable when faced together. It is also perhaps the most direct and honest portrayal of life in transition both for Erik and Andreas and how it affects both of them. I highly recommend this novel to you—it is brilliant.
Read Sammy’s review in its entirety here.
5 stars
I love when an author is able to take us into the mind of a character and reveal to us those inner thoughts that impact the decisions that person makes. In this case, the story of what it’s like being a trans man who is desperate to continue physically transitioning after top surgery, but has been told repeatedly he is too invested in his feminine body is almost heartbreaking to read. When you add to that the fact he has gotten pregnant, not really knowing how much his dysphoria would make the pregnancy a living hell, well you have a compelling window into a life most of us will never know or truly understand.
Erik the Pink is a beautiful love story that centers not on just a couple, but a family who learns to love deeply and trust one another—to accept that life will never be easy, yet the challenges are made tolerable when faced together. It is also perhaps the most direct and honest portrayal of life in transition both for Erik and Andreas and how it affects both of them. I highly recommend this novel to you—it is brilliant.
Read Sammy’s review in its entirety here.
November 20, 2020
This would probably work even better for someone who can relate to wanting children this badly. Or at all :) I only picked it up because I love this author and it's such a rare storyline to see with a trans character, but I was a little worried after the first chapter or two. It starts in the hospital immediately after the birth and was so incredibly baby-focused that I wasn't sure I would be able to connect with the characters.
Luckily it didn't take long for Andreas' personality to come through, and while it's still very focused on the family unit -- that has now grown to three -- it feels very much like Metzger's other established relationship stories. And he excels at those. So by the end I just wanted more time with these guys, especially since Andreas was still working through some of the fallout from the pregnancy.
It works great as a slice of life, but I think I was expecting something a little more than that.
Luckily it didn't take long for Andreas' personality to come through, and while it's still very focused on the family unit -- that has now grown to three -- it feels very much like Metzger's other established relationship stories. And he excels at those. So by the end I just wanted more time with these guys, especially since Andreas was still working through some of the fallout from the pregnancy.
It works great as a slice of life, but I think I was expecting something a little more than that.
August 31, 2018
Erik the Pink
By Matthew J. Metzger
JMS Books, 2018
Five Stars
It is somehow assumed that gay men are automatically tuned into understanding what it means to be transgender. We are not. It is just as puzzling and, frankly, terrifying to us as it is to straight people. Sad but true. And that’s why I bought this book. Matthew Metzger is a wonderful writer, and I’ve loved every book of his so far. I bought this book because I thought it might open me up to understanding. It did, indeed; but “Erik the Pink” is also is one of the best-written portraits of a same-sex relationship I’ve ever encountered. It is about intimacy and identity, and how the two are inexorably intertwined.
Erik Lerouge was an abandoned baby who grew up in foster care. Andreas Mão de Ferro is Spanish, and was rejected by his family when he came out to them as transgender. Both of these men have built their own lives and identities in the face of abandonment. Both of them have always dreamed of having a family. Andreas puts off his medical transitioning in order to give birth to his and Erik’s baby, and the book begins with that birth. What it becomes, however, is a remarkable two-sided story of these two men becoming new fathers, even as Andreas deals with the emotional and physical complications of gender dysphoria that are magnified by the process of pregnancy.
This book is not a lecture or a lesson. Metzger draws us into the heads and hearts of both Erik and Andreas. We see them, and inevitably we come to love them. There is no better path to understanding than through love, and Metzger takes us there, a profound gift that left me teary-eyed and happy at the end. I felt I had crossed something of a threshold. I read a great love story, and I changed as a person for having read this.
By Matthew J. Metzger
JMS Books, 2018
Five Stars
It is somehow assumed that gay men are automatically tuned into understanding what it means to be transgender. We are not. It is just as puzzling and, frankly, terrifying to us as it is to straight people. Sad but true. And that’s why I bought this book. Matthew Metzger is a wonderful writer, and I’ve loved every book of his so far. I bought this book because I thought it might open me up to understanding. It did, indeed; but “Erik the Pink” is also is one of the best-written portraits of a same-sex relationship I’ve ever encountered. It is about intimacy and identity, and how the two are inexorably intertwined.
Erik Lerouge was an abandoned baby who grew up in foster care. Andreas Mão de Ferro is Spanish, and was rejected by his family when he came out to them as transgender. Both of these men have built their own lives and identities in the face of abandonment. Both of them have always dreamed of having a family. Andreas puts off his medical transitioning in order to give birth to his and Erik’s baby, and the book begins with that birth. What it becomes, however, is a remarkable two-sided story of these two men becoming new fathers, even as Andreas deals with the emotional and physical complications of gender dysphoria that are magnified by the process of pregnancy.
This book is not a lecture or a lesson. Metzger draws us into the heads and hearts of both Erik and Andreas. We see them, and inevitably we come to love them. There is no better path to understanding than through love, and Metzger takes us there, a profound gift that left me teary-eyed and happy at the end. I felt I had crossed something of a threshold. I read a great love story, and I changed as a person for having read this.
July 22, 2018
I have a feeling this review comes across as very defensive but I just don't want to be offensive. So, sorry if this review reads 'awkward'.
There I go again.
The last four books that I have read have been The Impossible Boy, Erik the Pink, Exhale and That Irresistible Poison in that order and ever since I finished "That Irresistible Poison", I have been suffering from a book hungover so bad that I was convinced that the only way out was to re-read the book but since travelling and reading don’t mix for me, I have just been thinking about the book over and over again just, lingering on in that world, when a random thought hit my head and I was jolted out of my hangover. There is this exchange in this book, Erik the Pink in which Erik is talking to one of his friends, I am pretty sure it is Jo, who tells him to not be scared for his daughter because somehow his worries will linger on in her mind as a fear that will handicap her ability to try new things and instead he should make her believe that she can do anything. This piece of the book is so profound that I am so very glad that it stayed with me. It is the single most important advice about parenting and this epiphany made me realise just how amazing this book was on a whole. It really is.
This book deals primarily with Erik and Andreas’ adventures in parenting, navigating their own relationship and Andreas’ dizzy days. I was expecting a lot of sex in this one coming from Sex in C Major but this book doesn’t feature a single sex scene which I mention because it was a departure from how "Sex in C Major" was and I was definitely carrying over some pre-conceptions. But the fact that there is no sex in this book in this book is notable only because of that, my preconceived notions otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed. This book had me so hooked that I couldn’t stop reading.
I loved reading about Andreas’ struggles of going through with a pregnancy that caused him such intense dysphoria and it was amazing reading about it because it’s enlightening to know about such things to know about issues that transgendered individuals face and I mean that positively and not in an intrusive way. But ever since Yannis from "Sex in C Major" I have had a completely different viewpoint on what diversity gives us. Up till that point, it didn’t really make a difference one way or the other but now I realise that being subjected to diversity is the only way to learn, in the hopes that one day people who feel repressed will have faith in our acceptance to come into the light. This book just strengthened my viewpoint.
I loved Erik and Andreas’ relationship which was such an eye-opener. It was an amazing relationship, it was imperfectly perfect, I understood how Erik had, at times, problems understanding where Andreas was coming from but he was always a 100% supportive and he always looked out for him. I really love Erik and I also feel that he was the character we got to know more because we got to see him grow as a person, a father and a partner but Andreas character development gets kind of overshadowed by the challenges of his pregnancy and its consequences that we kind of miss out on learning about him as a parent and to a lesser degree as a partner. Andreas doesn’t act like a first-time parent at all. I know he has done this a lot of times but, come on, there has to be something that happens for which you are completely unprepared for, that throws you for a loop, babies are amazing at perplexing even the most prepared of parents. So, I feel like that was something I missed out on and which I would have loved to read more about. Also, I feel like with Andreas we revisit his pregnancy a lot when it comes to why his dysphoria is different from his dysphoria pre-pregnancy but again I felt like the book kind of equated his dysphoria during and after pregnancy, though I feel like these two things might have been different, again your mileage might totally vary on this one.
But, truly this book was amazing and it made me grow and hopefully will go a long way when I become a parent because I feel like that lesson that Erik learns in this book about parenting might be the most important one there is. So, in the end, I will leave you with the quote that single-handedly prompted this review.
“If you act like Beatriz is going to get hurt by something, she’ll pick up on it and get scared of it, too. Or you can act like she’s got superpowers and can take on the world, then so will she.”
There I go again.
The last four books that I have read have been The Impossible Boy, Erik the Pink, Exhale and That Irresistible Poison in that order and ever since I finished "That Irresistible Poison", I have been suffering from a book hungover so bad that I was convinced that the only way out was to re-read the book but since travelling and reading don’t mix for me, I have just been thinking about the book over and over again just, lingering on in that world, when a random thought hit my head and I was jolted out of my hangover. There is this exchange in this book, Erik the Pink in which Erik is talking to one of his friends, I am pretty sure it is Jo, who tells him to not be scared for his daughter because somehow his worries will linger on in her mind as a fear that will handicap her ability to try new things and instead he should make her believe that she can do anything. This piece of the book is so profound that I am so very glad that it stayed with me. It is the single most important advice about parenting and this epiphany made me realise just how amazing this book was on a whole. It really is.
This book deals primarily with Erik and Andreas’ adventures in parenting, navigating their own relationship and Andreas’ dizzy days. I was expecting a lot of sex in this one coming from Sex in C Major but this book doesn’t feature a single sex scene which I mention because it was a departure from how "Sex in C Major" was and I was definitely carrying over some pre-conceptions. But the fact that there is no sex in this book in this book is notable only because of that, my preconceived notions otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed. This book had me so hooked that I couldn’t stop reading.
I loved reading about Andreas’ struggles of going through with a pregnancy that caused him such intense dysphoria and it was amazing reading about it because it’s enlightening to know about such things to know about issues that transgendered individuals face and I mean that positively and not in an intrusive way. But ever since Yannis from "Sex in C Major" I have had a completely different viewpoint on what diversity gives us. Up till that point, it didn’t really make a difference one way or the other but now I realise that being subjected to diversity is the only way to learn, in the hopes that one day people who feel repressed will have faith in our acceptance to come into the light. This book just strengthened my viewpoint.
I loved Erik and Andreas’ relationship which was such an eye-opener. It was an amazing relationship, it was imperfectly perfect, I understood how Erik had, at times, problems understanding where Andreas was coming from but he was always a 100% supportive and he always looked out for him. I really love Erik and I also feel that he was the character we got to know more because we got to see him grow as a person, a father and a partner but Andreas character development gets kind of overshadowed by the challenges of his pregnancy and its consequences that we kind of miss out on learning about him as a parent and to a lesser degree as a partner. Andreas doesn’t act like a first-time parent at all. I know he has done this a lot of times but, come on, there has to be something that happens for which you are completely unprepared for, that throws you for a loop, babies are amazing at perplexing even the most prepared of parents. So, I feel like that was something I missed out on and which I would have loved to read more about. Also, I feel like with Andreas we revisit his pregnancy a lot when it comes to why his dysphoria is different from his dysphoria pre-pregnancy but again I felt like the book kind of equated his dysphoria during and after pregnancy, though I feel like these two things might have been different, again your mileage might totally vary on this one.
But, truly this book was amazing and it made me grow and hopefully will go a long way when I become a parent because I feel like that lesson that Erik learns in this book about parenting might be the most important one there is. So, in the end, I will leave you with the quote that single-handedly prompted this review.
“If you act like Beatriz is going to get hurt by something, she’ll pick up on it and get scared of it, too. Or you can act like she’s got superpowers and can take on the world, then so will she.”
May 16, 2021
Odd little story that was chalked full of wonderful emotion. This is my fill of baby for a year because she felt so real. Erik was a true sweetheart.
July 9, 2018
I don’t know what it is about Matthew’s writing but I just adore it. And the characters that he creates. And the stories that he tells (that all are so very different from one another). This story doesn’t have any great drama, or even on page sex, but, and I think this is what Matthew does so well, tells a tale that is very believable, about characters that I always fall in love with.
July 3, 2018
Erik the Pink focuses around an established relationship with a baby, entirely character driven, heavily focused on Andreas' transition and the couple figuring out how to work with a baby in their lives. An interesting story, I wouldn't say it's fluffy, but it's not extremely heavy either unless reading about dysphoria would trigger dysphoria for someone. The only thing that threw me were a few weird inaccuracies about baby things, but that's such a small thing.
August 12, 2018
4.5 stars!!
This was a beautiful, beautiful story. Some parts were almost too sweet but there was always some sarcasm to pull it back 😂
I think this is my first book by Matthew J Metzger and I’m kicking myself for taking so long to read anything by him because I like his writing style and his characters.
No, the characters aren’t perfect. Erik is fat and not particularly good looking but he has such a happy and sunny disposition that’s infectious, even across the pages. Andreas is more moody and sarcastic and it’s understandable for a man who has body dysmorphia and is often misgendered because he hasn’t had his transition yet.
I love just watching Erik and Andreas navigate their relationship with a new baby and all their problems. It was low level tension and zero drama and a snapshot of their daily lives. Lovely! Can’t wait to read another Matthew J Metzger book!
This was a beautiful, beautiful story. Some parts were almost too sweet but there was always some sarcasm to pull it back 😂
I think this is my first book by Matthew J Metzger and I’m kicking myself for taking so long to read anything by him because I like his writing style and his characters.
No, the characters aren’t perfect. Erik is fat and not particularly good looking but he has such a happy and sunny disposition that’s infectious, even across the pages. Andreas is more moody and sarcastic and it’s understandable for a man who has body dysmorphia and is often misgendered because he hasn’t had his transition yet.
I love just watching Erik and Andreas navigate their relationship with a new baby and all their problems. It was low level tension and zero drama and a snapshot of their daily lives. Lovely! Can’t wait to read another Matthew J Metzger book!
May 10, 2023
Fantastic story! This is a true love story: two young men who love each other when all is well, and most importantly, when all is not well. Erik the Red is a big and burly redhead with hair halfway down his back and a long shaggy beard. Truly a big bear of a man. Abandoned when he was eighteen months old, he’s “a tough survivor...an abandoned, unwanted, unloved survivor.” He’s always followed his dreams, carving out a place for himself in the world and working toward his goal of having a family of his own, though as he aged that goal seemed unattainable. This is the story of how Erik the Red became Erik the Pink, a softer version of the original, one who found love with a young transgender man and together created a family of friends, at the center of which is the baby girl born of the couple’s love.
Erik’s lover, Andreas, is a young Spaniard of Portuguese descent who was assigned female at birth. He’s had top surgery, which proved to be one of the most wonderful days of his life, second only to meeting Erik, his true love. When the couple decide to have a child before Andreas begins his testosterone treatment, that starts a very difficult year. From conception to delivery to the postpartum period Andreas suffers from gender dysphoria. Readers witness his recovery and relapses into genital dysphoria during the postpartum period as he struggles with caring for his infant and loving Erik while establishing new parameters for their intimacy, and he works on getting back to a healthy mental state by working to remove the softening of his jawline, the added weight to his hips and thighs, and of course, the baby belly. I truly appreciated the attention to detail the author gave to Andreas’s thoughts and feelings.
Erik’s and Andreas’s journey from two men who meet and fall in love to becoming a family, at the center of which is Beatriz, their baby girl, and their core group of fully supportive and loving friends is beautiful, realistic, heartwarming, difficult at times, and 100 percent worth reading. I’m totally in awe of Matthew J. Metzger’s ability to give life to words.
Erik’s lover, Andreas, is a young Spaniard of Portuguese descent who was assigned female at birth. He’s had top surgery, which proved to be one of the most wonderful days of his life, second only to meeting Erik, his true love. When the couple decide to have a child before Andreas begins his testosterone treatment, that starts a very difficult year. From conception to delivery to the postpartum period Andreas suffers from gender dysphoria. Readers witness his recovery and relapses into genital dysphoria during the postpartum period as he struggles with caring for his infant and loving Erik while establishing new parameters for their intimacy, and he works on getting back to a healthy mental state by working to remove the softening of his jawline, the added weight to his hips and thighs, and of course, the baby belly. I truly appreciated the attention to detail the author gave to Andreas’s thoughts and feelings.
Erik’s and Andreas’s journey from two men who meet and fall in love to becoming a family, at the center of which is Beatriz, their baby girl, and their core group of fully supportive and loving friends is beautiful, realistic, heartwarming, difficult at times, and 100 percent worth reading. I’m totally in awe of Matthew J. Metzger’s ability to give life to words.
February 10, 2020
This was so adorable. I didn't know how much I'd enjoy this book that just follows this wonderful couple around after the birth of their daughter.
This is about Erik and is partner Andreas who is a trans male and goes through a pregnancy. It starts with their daughter being born at the hospital, and then progressing from there with some small time jumps.
They had good days, bad days, and everything in between with having a brand new baby and having to deal with a storm of things. We get to be a part of Andreas 'dizzy days' with trying to deal with his dysphoria, as well as Erik struggling with how to help since they aren't in their head and don't understand completely how to be able to help.
We get to see the struggles as well as the rewarding feeling of having a newborn, and Erik bursting with love for both of them to be able to see this little person that looks like both him and Andreas. This messed me up in a bunch of ways about my own feelings about children and added to my heart just wanting everything for this family to have all the blessings available in the world, along with just pausing a lot that again I can recognize that I don't have that same pang or yearning to have myself.
Journeying with them to also confront, or at least be able to get in a healthier place, about the absolute crap that their past families were and be able to create a new one of their choosing was so cathartic and I hope that anyone who needs a better found family than what they were born to will be able to find one day.
This is about Erik and is partner Andreas who is a trans male and goes through a pregnancy. It starts with their daughter being born at the hospital, and then progressing from there with some small time jumps.
They had good days, bad days, and everything in between with having a brand new baby and having to deal with a storm of things. We get to be a part of Andreas 'dizzy days' with trying to deal with his dysphoria, as well as Erik struggling with how to help since they aren't in their head and don't understand completely how to be able to help.
We get to see the struggles as well as the rewarding feeling of having a newborn, and Erik bursting with love for both of them to be able to see this little person that looks like both him and Andreas. This messed me up in a bunch of ways about my own feelings about children and added to my heart just wanting everything for this family to have all the blessings available in the world, along with just pausing a lot that again I can recognize that I don't have that same pang or yearning to have myself.
Journeying with them to also confront, or at least be able to get in a healthier place, about the absolute crap that their past families were and be able to create a new one of their choosing was so cathartic and I hope that anyone who needs a better found family than what they were born to will be able to find one day.
September 3, 2018
Erik the Pink is my first transgender romance and I enjoyed reading it very much. The author does not sugar coat what it is like to be transgender or the very real difficulties that transgender people go through to become their true selves. As a reader I very much appreciated that. The love between Erik and Andreas is palpable and very real. Mr. Metzger writes the relationship ups and downs very realistically. Honestly, this book is far more about the emotions of the lead characters than their sex lives. Personally I found this refreshing and real. If you love real romance with at times gut wrenching emotional scenes and happy endings, then you will absolutely love this book as much as I did! I highly recommend Erik the Pink by Mr. Metzger, it is a superb and very well written story.
Regina
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More
Full Review @ Coffee Time Romance & More
Regina
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More
Full Review @ Coffee Time Romance & More
July 29, 2018
What a wonderful read! This is my second book from this author and I. Am. Hooked. I have a few more of his works lined up already!
Erik the Pink was a breath of fresh air. I've never read an MPreg type story before, I'm not even sure if that's what this book should be classified as. Even so, it's essentially about a pregnant man (assigned female at birth so the baby is biologically theirs) and how he deals with dysphoria after giving birth; as well as generally tackling first time parenthood alongside his fiancé, Erik, who has just taken number one spot as my favourite book hero of all time! *Heart eye emoji* What a sweetheart he was!
Would highly recommend to anybody who wants to spend a few hours with a huge grin of their face.
Erik the Pink was a breath of fresh air. I've never read an MPreg type story before, I'm not even sure if that's what this book should be classified as. Even so, it's essentially about a pregnant man (assigned female at birth so the baby is biologically theirs) and how he deals with dysphoria after giving birth; as well as generally tackling first time parenthood alongside his fiancé, Erik, who has just taken number one spot as my favourite book hero of all time! *Heart eye emoji* What a sweetheart he was!
Would highly recommend to anybody who wants to spend a few hours with a huge grin of their face.
July 29, 2018
Unusual queer romance that starts where most romances end (literally in some cases) - with the birth of a child. It’s the story of gay couple Erik and Andreas and their first year as parents, with a side of British snark. Really lovely portrait of found family. It’s a pretty low conflict story but I found it compelling.
As a cis woman, I don't feel I have much to say much about the trans rep, except to say that after reading this, I feel like I have a much more visceral understanding of dysmorphia.
There were some editing inconsistencies that took me out of the story - one of the MCs, Andreas, is Spanish and sometimes when he speaks Spanish it's written in English with a note that he's speaking in Spanish, and other times it's written in Spanish. Very weird.
As a cis woman, I don't feel I have much to say much about the trans rep, except to say that after reading this, I feel like I have a much more visceral understanding of dysmorphia.
There were some editing inconsistencies that took me out of the story - one of the MCs, Andreas, is Spanish and sometimes when he speaks Spanish it's written in English with a note that he's speaking in Spanish, and other times it's written in Spanish. Very weird.
May 30, 2023
This was so different than any mm I've ever read. I really enjoyed reading an mpreg like this and if anything, I wish it was longer. It felt so real and just really depicted what it would be like to go through this as a trans man.
September 7, 2018
Interessant
November 4, 2018
Awesome book. I like how dealing with dysphoria and having a partner with dysphoria was portrayed. It's different for everyone and I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it might be.
April 7, 2019
I really enjoyed this book.
June 11, 2019
3.5 stars
September 30, 2019
I enjoyed Erik, Andreas, Beatriz, and their found family. When reading this book, I couldn't imagine the dysphoria Andreas felt for 9+ months of pregnancy and post-partum.
January 18, 2023
This was very sweet
December 2, 2024
Simply incredible. A beautifully written book.
July 19, 2018
Many reviews (including the author’s comments) depict this as light and fluffy.
It also gives the reader insights into the reality of gender dysphoria.
It also gives the reader insights into the reality of gender dysphoria.
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