Kisses for Jet

by Joris Bas Backer

A striking and emotive graphic novel from trans creator, Joris Bas Backer about coming to terms with who you are in a world which is utterly confusing and overwhelming.

In 1999, when most people think that the world is about to end with the Y2K crash on the eve of the new Millennium, Jet is just trying to get through high school. When their Mom moves to another country to work on fixing the Millennium bug, Jet is forced to stay at a boarding house while they finish the school year, and they’re not pleased about it.

But something’s not quite right, and it’s not just the out-of-control kids that Jet has to live with, or the staff who look after the boarding house who act super suspiciously. As Jet slowly starts to feel overwhelmed by their peers, they begin to notice that they don’t feel like the other girls in their class. As new feelings start to emerge, Jet slowly begins to realise that they may be more of a boy than a girl.

Is that even possible? And who do they talk to about these feelings when there’s not even any internet around, and cell phones are barely used?

This coming-of-gender graphic novel debut from trans creator Joris Bas Backer is an enlightening and often hilarious tale that casts light on what it was like to be transgender before information and help was more accessible and widespread.

Genres: Graphic Novels, LGBT, Comics, Queer, Young Adult, Transgender, Graphic Novels Comics

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 2022

Reviews

[li.reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Full review to come, but in summary:

Some great, much-needed trans rep, really cool art style, loved the 90’s setting.

However, I really struggled to follow what was going on, like a lot. I was confused probably 95% of the time (although, I am neurodivergent, so that might just be a me problem)

(TWs: homophobia, nudity, dysphoria, fat-phobia, alcohol, minor sexual content, medical setting, needles, minor violence)

[Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in 1999, this book focuses on gender-questioning teen Jet. They cultivate a long-haired, Kurt Cobain-esque grunge look that is still read as female by most of society. Jet attempts to explore various aspects of their gender in the cramped environment of a Danish boarding school for international students; they try binding and steal boys' underwear from the laundry room but have to hide their experiments from nosy teen neighbors. Luckily, Jet has a friend, Sasha, who shares their love of music and mild rebellion. Sasha seems able to see Jet for who they are when no one else can. Drawn in a scratchy, lively art style, this book really pushes into questioning aspect of queer and trans identities; nothing here is clear cut, and even at the end of the story Jet doesn't know where transition will fully take them. I had the pleasure of reading an advanced reader copy of this book; look forward to it's release in May!

[Fraser Simons · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m glad there’s another book out there with some queer and trans rep in it, but to be Frank, I didn’t think much of this actually worked. The artwork wasn’t for me and feels very rushed and pretty boring to look at. The characters and situations are contrived, things that would be happening in school aren’t, there’s weird subplots that are, again, wildly contrived. There’s barely any interiority and when it does pop up, it’s at odd times. It’s just fundamentally uninteresting and started losing me around a quarter of the way in, when the main tension was around a complete douche and his gold chain, I was on the struggle bus to try to care town.

[Jasminka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jippie für Trans Repräsentation!
Die Geschichte war nur etwas abrupt, und irgendwie war nicht immer ersichtlich was abgeht. Konnte die Charaktere nicht immer ganz nachvollziehen, aber insgesamt nette, kurzweilige Geschichte

[Ashton · Rating 4 out of 5]

disclaimer — this was sent to me by nobrow press!

i went in with no expectations and enjoyed this a lot! it felt like a perzine-gone-comic, which was definitely relatable and not overly explanatory or moralizing. i do wonder how much was lost in translation, as there are a few bits of dialogue that are confusing or seem like they could’ve been mistranslated, but i didn’t find it hard to follow at all. i do wish some of the threads were resolved more conclusively — the fatphobia, threats/assault, and lesbian plotlines felt abandoned instead of concluded. at the same time, coming-of-age stories like these that use the author’s experiences but are not /memoirs/ tend to do that, and it isn’t necessarily negative — just not my favourite. the setting was well-developed and i found the characters realistic, if not well-developed. i thought the art style was very consistent and easy to understand, and the visual depictions of dysphoria and dream/imagination sequences were really great! solid 4/5.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5… god i loved this book. it wasn’t what i expected but it was so lively and beautiful, the drawings were full of feeling! the only issue i had was following the plot/(mainly keeping up with who the characters were); though it’s possible i was trying to read it too fast lol
//
okay after reading some other reviews, i totally disagree that the gender plot was not a central point. did we read the same book? yes, it is a story about teenagers and a lot of the events that happened were typical teenage activities with teenage angst, but the ~gender crisis~ vibes literally seeped through every page, every plot and every little side story. it seemed obvious how jet’s experience with gender exacerbated all of the normative teenage issues that the characters encountered? maybe i only saw it because i was able to recognize and feel parts of my own transgender experience in the art but i dunno man.

****(slight spoilers here on out—>)****
and did people not understand that the author was making fun of the doctor at the end? the way the doc was portrayed as singing and dancing around saying dumb shit like “but i’m a man and i have short hair!”… i feel like that was so clearly the author/artist saying “can u fucking believe these doctors say shit like this to transgender people and can you believe the weird hoops we have to jump through just to be accepted as who we are?”.. like am i insane or do people just not know how to read tone

[Flo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich finde die Thematik wichtig und freue mich, dass sich mehr Bücher mit queeren Charakteren und ihren Geschichten auseinandersetzen. Aber mir hat im Comic zu viel gefehlt. Die Handlungs- und Ortssprünge waren teilweise zu stark. Vor allem die Internatsschüler fand ich doch sehr klischeehaft und oberflächlich dargestellt. Bei vielen Figuren habe ich mich gefragt, welche Rolle sie in dem Comic spielen sollen. Geschichten wurden angerissen, aber dann komplett fallen gelassen, wie die Kündigung von René, die geheimen Nachtaktionen der Rektorin oder auch das Ende im Internat, das quasi in einer Katastrophe endet, aber gar nicht aufgeklärt wird. Der Comic wollte einfach mehr, als er im Endeffekt halten konnte. Ich glaube aus der Geschichte könnte man noch viel mehr machen.
Den Zeichenstil mochte ich dagegen sehr gerne und auch die Zeiteinordnung in die 90er Jahre.

[Estibaliz · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

For a graphic novel that presents itself like "a coming-of-gender story", I felt the transgender topic was a bit too much of a tangential plot point here, and I certainly had some issues with that part of the story where the doctor/psychologist(?) says "Look at me! I have short hair!".

Anyway, the whole story felt more like a collection of moments, with plenty of teenage angst and not an in depth enough explanation of the main character's feelings and motivations. Of course, teenage years are confusing, and sure gender identity questions can be even more confusing yet. Plus I'm not a transgender person myself, so...

I simply didn't enjoy it much, and I think there's much better graphic novels that talk about all the topics tackled here.

[Lee Noodle · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded up. An interesting semi autobiographical story of one young person's gender journey at the turn of the millennium in the Netherlands. The art style was adequate to telling the story but not very memorable. I felt like some of the character relationships were not fleshed out enough for me to feel the connections, and sometimes there were major time or action jumps that left me confused.

[Eva B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up
I really liked this one! It reminded me of a hybrid of Persepolis (specifically the time when Marjane is in the boarding school) and Welcome To St. Hell and I really liked the art style and color usage.

[Bug · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5 stars] This was very cute :) The art is well stylised, I liked the colour scheme and the characters. I enjoyed reading this a lot, though I did find it confusing to follow in places as it jumped around a lot. For me, I think some parts could have been explored in more depth while leaving out some side-plots, but the general theme and plot were interesting and important !! The representation and feelings explored were presented well and very nuanced :)

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read every queer and trans graphic novel and memoir I can get my hands on, and this was definitely one of my favorites. Joris Bas Backer has built such a vivid world in this piece and I was so emotionally invested the whole time. Also, I feel like a lot of graphic novels have images that I have trouble parsing or that don’t feel tied in to the rest of the piece. In this book, every image had such resonance to the emotional journey of the character and I just loved that. Got this from the library but might need to add it to my permanent collection 🥰

[Anni K. Mars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mochte es sehr gern! Manchmal etwas verwirrend, aber das gibt auch gut wieder, wie man sich in den Jugendjahren fühlt 😄
Als Serie wäre es Bombe.

[Lula · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was vv nice to read a positive queer story that doesn’t revolve around bullying/discrimination <3 and to have a playlist with some actual nice songs on it wow what a first

[Akiva ꙮ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't know what to make of the ending, tbh. It goes from "everyone is making bad but realistic choices and they are having realistically mixed results" to "everyone is making such bizarre choices right now... and it's working out great? it solved the conflicts? huh, OK."

wait, to what degree is this a YA-ified teen forced-masc fantasy?? I think I need to read it again before it goes back to the library.

Dec 2023: Reread. I liked the art even more this time - it's simple yet very expressive, and does a lot of creative, unique, sometimes abstract stuff to convey feelings. It also became clearer to me that the ending is just not satisfying - some things wrap up too neatly (the friend getting a bee in her bonnet about getting Jet to go to the gender clinic; there's a big lacuna where Jet comes out to his parents and everything else that happens between "oh wow, it's possible to transition?" and getting your first medical treatment), others barely feel resolved at all (getting prosecuted for stealing the necklace?!). Too bad! I did really like most of this, and I'll have to read more by Backer.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the cover says, this is a nice little coming-of-gender story. It's a quick read. But...it seems so...indirect? And it's as much, or more, about teenage drama as it is about gender. Which, as it's a young adult book, is maybe okay for the intended audience; I didn't care about it. Jet's gender issues are mostly hinted at in wordless panels. Jet never actually says anything about his gender, other than kind of identifying with Kurt Cobain. It almost seems like he's confused and just going along with whoever talks about it. Maybe that's intentional and shows his difficulty dealing with it? I couldn't tell.

[Mairéad · Rating 2 out of 5]

With it's monochromatic illustrations and somewhat meandering story this graphic novel about a young person figuring out their gender identity in the early 2000's should have been an instant hit for me but unfortunately it just didn't capture my imagination or tug on my heart strings the way I would have expected it to. It is essential that we have more diverse stories represented in graphic novels so I'm glad the book exists and I've no doubt it will connect with many young trans people who could relate directly to the protagonists experiences but for me it missed the mark.
Thanks to Netgalley.co.uk and Nobrow Ltd for the free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so glad when I found this graphic novel, because I feel like the world can always use more books about gender and the trans experience! Some of the pages in this were very powerful, but a lot were also somewhat confusing. I didn't fully understand what was going on. And the book something felt a bit surface level to me. When I finished it, I was left with a feeling of "That's it?".

Nevertheless, I'm glad that this book exists, and I hope it makes someone feel seen!

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in 1999, the height of Y2K and the millennium bug, this Graphic novel was an interesting gender exploration with some touches on sexuality.

I feel there were a lot of potential plots throughout however they weren’t woven together in a way that entirely worked for me as a reader, however for young trans people, or those figuring things out, it may be an interesting read.

[Emily Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

LETS TALK ABOUT THE EPICNESS OF JET!

Firstly let’s look at the fact we get very little of this in the graphic novel/comic world. Characters who are trans or struggling with identity or just trying to find their footing in a world that differs so much from their own.

It’s really awesome to see trans representation in a novel, let alone an account of trans struggles. But what’s really cool is the time period, this glimpse we get into the 90s.

The novel opens in ‘94, and as a nonbianry person born in the 90s it was interesting to see how things differed from now. Whilst I remember living it, I was never at an age of being openly lgbt+ at that point (I was only four.) So what was interesting to see was the available information out there at the time to help people understand and find themselves, and how toxic at times that was.

Now this is fairly emotive, Jet faces many struggles including discovering sexuality and gender, but also conflict with absent parents, a dodgy boarding school and creepy men (Stef I’m looking at you.)

The artwork is brilliant- Joris has a comic art style and works primarily in just blue and black, something that stirs the pot for gender conflict right from the get go. But throughout you get the odd appearance of pink. Normally highlighting moments of insecurity or embarrassment or straight out discomfort. The way Joris works with colour is truly interesting to see.

All in all I really enjoyed this; thank you to NoBrow for my copy, this is a brilliant translation.

Tw//

Homophobia, imagery of private body parts, slight moment of outing.

[Sam Hertl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woof! Part of me feels sad that I haven’t known I was trans since I was a kiddo, but geez- what a tough thing to navigate. Perceptions and declarations from others about your presentation can always be traumatizing at a young age & this is without the consideration of transness. I’m grateful for the friendship represented & the wonderful ending. A lovely peek into someone’s life.

[alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joris Bas Backer has a charming, messy, piecey art style that I loved, and a similarly piecey approach to narrative that kept me at arm's length and unfortunately prevented me from connecting with the work as a whole.

[Harry Embleton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story, but a little confusing at points. It felt like it jumped around a bit too much - things happening and then going nowhere. But I’m assuming it’s potentially a biographical piece which would explain a lot of that?

Lovely illustrations though, and I enjoyed reading it this afternoon. Great to see stories like these being told, I imagine a lot of people will felt seen by this.

[Kemi · Rating 4 out of 5]

such a good depiction of gender dysphoria and finding yourself. HIGHLY recommend

[Apollo · Rating 5 out of 5]

he is just like me

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a little disjointed and dry, but had its moments.

[Alyssa CD · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF just couldn’t catch my attention and I wasn’t a fan of the art style, which just wasn’t my taste

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was lovely

[Castro · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5 stars

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the representation and the friendships were cute, the art and the colours were fun, however I was so confused avout certain characters and plots! Still a cute wee read