I picked this up at a book event since I loved the author’s latest work Spiro, and the concept sounded so interesting I just had to read it! A road trip story where a trans guy (Liam) and his friend (Tor) are going together to Oslo so that Liam can get professional help with his transition, with the goal of the book being to display just how terrible the Norwegian system for helping trans people actually is.
What I was not expecting from this pitch was just how awkward this road trip was going to be! Liam and Tor have a history together, they’ve had a romantic relationship which did not end too well and a big focus of the book is displaying just how awkward things are between them. Especially because the entire story is told from Tor’s perspective in a first person view, and Tor has clearly not gotten over their breakup. Everything is told through Tor’s thoughts, we never get to see what Liam is thinking, just Tor’s interpretation of what Liam may be thinking. I wasn’t the biggest fan of how the book was written at first, there’s a lot of punctuation making it hard to read at times, and the book will just jump back and forth in time without warning or anything to signify the change has happened. Not only that, but dialogue is written without the symbols indicating dialogue so sometimes that leads to confusion as well.
But then it hit me that the book is written this way because we are in Tor’s head! The reason the book jumps so much back and forth in time is because Tor is lost in his own thoughts thinking back to previous events in his life in the middle of doing other things like driving. The dialogue is without the “” marks because we are seeing the dialogue through Tor’s thoughts. Realizing this made me really start enjoying the book, suddenly it added so much more depth to the characters. We get to see a lot of Tor, but we never really get to know Liam.
Tor and Liam wanted very different things out of the car trip, and I think that’s what made it so awkward for both. Tor wanted for them to talk about their relationship, maybe revive it, to at least talk about themselves. We don’t see Liam’s thoughts in the same way, but I think what he really wanted was support. A friend who cares for him, who’d be there for him while he goes through the meeting at the hospital. Someone to tell him that things will be alright. Tor is unable to deliver what Liam needs, maybe that is why their relationship didn’t work out in the first place.
I’m not too good at reading people, so I may be completely wrong about my reading of the situation but I got the impression that Tor too is struggling with identity, but isn’t able to take the step to actually explore it? Maybe that’s why he’s so frustrated, and acts the way he does throughout the book. It's not a very fun book to read. Having to sit in Tor’s head while he is unable to form a connection with his friend, it’s just straight up uncomfortable. In a good way of course! It isn’t a happy story, something made especially clear in the final section of the book where Liam finally does get to the hospital for his meeting which leads into one of the most uncomfortable scenes I’ve ever read. If this is what it’s like to actually go through this process…. I dunno, it didn’t soothe any of the fears I have around it :(
But I am glad I read this, I do have a better understanding now of why trans people aren’t too happy about this system!
It's really sad that Tor couldn’t be there for him when Liam needed it, after going through all this only to get rejected. It’s honestly so devastating it affected my mood while reading :(
I don’t know what Tor could have done to prevent what eventually happens at the end of the story, but he could have done something. I dunno, showing support in some way, hell maybe a hug that would be better than nothing! It was frustrating to see how quickly they just left each other after this. I can’t entirely blame Tor either, maybe he thought the best course of action was to give Liam space to process things on his own? Or maybe he just didn’t think of how Liam has it, being too focused on his own disappointment for how the trip turned out.
Like I said I’m not too good at reading people, and this is a book which gives you a lot to read into. These characters have so much depth I’m only beginning to unravel while writing this ‘review’ if you can call it that. Mostly just noting down my thoughts on the book really! I have been both the Liam and the Tor of real life situations before so I can understand both their sides, and that makes it extra sad seeing how they are unable to communicate what they need from each other. Tor was too stuck in his own thoughts for what this trip should have been like to see what Liam needed this trip to be like, that’s my interpretation of the characters. Anyways, it is really late so I will stop writing here. I really enjoyed the experience of reading this book!
(Molly hvis du leser dette så var jeg den veldig engstelige, ikke helt ut av skapet enda transjenta Nora som satt på sofaen like ved og som ikke turte å snakke til deg. Har veldig sterk sosial angst :(((
Så ehehe, beklager for at jeg var så klein, takk for signaturene!)