What do you think?
Rate this book
Any Other City
Any Other City is a two-sided fictional memoir by Tracy St. Cyr, who helms the beloved indie rock band Static Saints. Side A is a snapshot of her life from 1993, when Tracy arrives in a labyrinthine city as a fledgling artist and unexpectedly falls in with a clutch of trans women, including the iconoclastic visual artist Sadie Tang.
Side B finds Tracy, now a semi-famous musician, in the same strange city in 2019, healing from a traumatic event through songwriting, queer kinship, and sexual pleasure. While writing her memoir, Tracy perceives how the past reverberates into the present, how a body is a time machine, how there’s power in refusing to dust the past with powdered sugar, and how seedlings begin to slowly grow in empty spaces after things have been broken open.
Motifs recur like musical phrases, and traces of what used to be there peek through, like a palimpsest. Any Other City is a novel about friendship and other forms of love, travelling in a body across decades, and transmuting trauma through art making and queer sex—a love letter to trans femmes and to art itself.
Side B finds Tracy, now a semi-famous musician, in the same strange city in 2019, healing from a traumatic event through songwriting, queer kinship, and sexual pleasure. While writing her memoir, Tracy perceives how the past reverberates into the present, how a body is a time machine, how there’s power in refusing to dust the past with powdered sugar, and how seedlings begin to slowly grow in empty spaces after things have been broken open.
Motifs recur like musical phrases, and traces of what used to be there peek through, like a palimpsest. Any Other City is a novel about friendship and other forms of love, travelling in a body across decades, and transmuting trauma through art making and queer sex—a love letter to trans femmes and to art itself.
287 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 2023
32 people are currently reading
3240 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
July 12, 2023
Full review to come, but this was sad and hot and musical and smart. Hazel Jane Plante is such a gift!!
June 2, 2023
love a book thats 60% devastating, 40% horny
May 16, 2025
4 Stars for Any Other City (audiobook) by Hazel Jane Plante read by the author.
I feel kind a silly right now, while I was listening to this I actually thought that this was a memoir and not just a fiction novel written like one. Now I understand why I couldn’t find any of the music that was mentioned in the story on YouTube.
So this is an interesting story of a trans woman finding a healing place in indie rock. The memoir is set in two parts, the first is at the beginning of her career and the second is after she’s well known. I love getting little glimpses of artists lives as they’re refining their art.
I feel kind a silly right now, while I was listening to this I actually thought that this was a memoir and not just a fiction novel written like one. Now I understand why I couldn’t find any of the music that was mentioned in the story on YouTube.
So this is an interesting story of a trans woman finding a healing place in indie rock. The memoir is set in two parts, the first is at the beginning of her career and the second is after she’s well known. I love getting little glimpses of artists lives as they’re refining their art.
January 11, 2025
March 11, 2023:
I absolutely loved ANY OTHER CITY by Hazel Jane Plante! I loved the unique format of this novel! It’s a fictional memoir about a trans femme musician Tracy St. Cyr told in two parts Side A and Side B like a cassette tape. I loved how Hazel Jane Plante is also a character in this book who helps Tracy write her memoir. Side A explores Tracy’s arrival in 1993 to a city full of alleys and her newfound friendship with a group of artistic trans women. I loved the focus on female friendships and finding new communities. Side B features Tracy returning to the city in 2019 as a successful musician and exploring sexy queer intimacy. I loved that this novel is about healing through art and music. I loved the exceptional creative writing that includes a forward by Hazel Jane Plante telling you about the memoir you’re about to read, preface to the reader by Tracy, song lyrics, and a second title page. I loved this book and it’s one of my faves of this year!
Thank you to Arsenal Pulp Press for my advance review copy!
January 10, 2025
I just reread this novel on audio and loved it too! Fantastic narration by the author.
Thank you to ECW Press via NetGalley for my ALC!
I absolutely loved ANY OTHER CITY by Hazel Jane Plante! I loved the unique format of this novel! It’s a fictional memoir about a trans femme musician Tracy St. Cyr told in two parts Side A and Side B like a cassette tape. I loved how Hazel Jane Plante is also a character in this book who helps Tracy write her memoir. Side A explores Tracy’s arrival in 1993 to a city full of alleys and her newfound friendship with a group of artistic trans women. I loved the focus on female friendships and finding new communities. Side B features Tracy returning to the city in 2019 as a successful musician and exploring sexy queer intimacy. I loved that this novel is about healing through art and music. I loved the exceptional creative writing that includes a forward by Hazel Jane Plante telling you about the memoir you’re about to read, preface to the reader by Tracy, song lyrics, and a second title page. I loved this book and it’s one of my faves of this year!
Thank you to Arsenal Pulp Press for my advance review copy!
January 10, 2025
I just reread this novel on audio and loved it too! Fantastic narration by the author.
Thank you to ECW Press via NetGalley for my ALC!
January 15, 2023
OW. I FEEL BOTH STABBED AND HELD BY THE KNIFE WITH CARE. HAZEL JANE JUST DELICATELY CARVED ME OPEN. OW.
Top tier fisting content btw.
Thank you Arsenal Pulp Press for sending me an ARC, more review to come.
Top tier fisting content btw.
Thank you Arsenal Pulp Press for sending me an ARC, more review to come.
April 13, 2023
Hazel Jane Plante did it again.
April 12, 2025
An achingly tender and very sexy faux-memoir, kinda Kathy Acker, kinda late-night sleepover conversation with someone with whom you are cultivating a very special feeling that, once you two fall asleep beneath her band posters, you'll never quite feel again.
It is hard to describe this book –– at base, it's a two-phase autobiography-in-letters by a trans musician who comes under the tutelage of a mysterious, compelling performance artist, falls in and out of love with herself and others, and later finds herself navigating the pressures of fame and public trans identity while dealing with the fallout of many dalliances with queer, kinky, Mad, traumatized kin. Intimate enough to pass at times for a nonfictional memoir and deeply invested in independent music culture, it at times felt like an ethnography of a creative world I am not part of: I feel I understand better how songwriting works, how bands locate and maintain chemistry.
This book was also, of course, an invitation into the complex psyche of its narrator, and in this case, what goes unsaid and unseen is as interesting as what made it onto the page. Framed as a skyscraper whose elevator only stops on two of its many floors, the "two-phase" element of this memoir refers to the snapshots of the narrator's life it chooses to capture: first, the year she's twenty, and second, a year in her forties. In doing this, Any Other City disrupts not only trans memoir conventions, but any memoir conventions: we receive only passing references to ages 0-20, and to the crucial intervening years between 20 and 40+, in the latter period of which our narrator discovers she's trans and begins living as a woman.
We as readers are deliciously, brilliantly cut off from major chunks of life –– Big Trans Events, Big Fame Events –– to instead hone in on the micro-moments of music, sex, heartbreak, loss, friendship, pleasure. This structural decision was an excellent one on Plante's part (and for added meta-fuckery, Plante is described in-text as the person helping her fictional narrator write the memoir) and creates the generative dissonance inherent to this book: on one hand, it is the story of a famous trans woman. On the other, we know only what she herself chooses to share.
It is hard to describe this book –– at base, it's a two-phase autobiography-in-letters by a trans musician who comes under the tutelage of a mysterious, compelling performance artist, falls in and out of love with herself and others, and later finds herself navigating the pressures of fame and public trans identity while dealing with the fallout of many dalliances with queer, kinky, Mad, traumatized kin. Intimate enough to pass at times for a nonfictional memoir and deeply invested in independent music culture, it at times felt like an ethnography of a creative world I am not part of: I feel I understand better how songwriting works, how bands locate and maintain chemistry.
This book was also, of course, an invitation into the complex psyche of its narrator, and in this case, what goes unsaid and unseen is as interesting as what made it onto the page. Framed as a skyscraper whose elevator only stops on two of its many floors, the "two-phase" element of this memoir refers to the snapshots of the narrator's life it chooses to capture: first, the year she's twenty, and second, a year in her forties. In doing this, Any Other City disrupts not only trans memoir conventions, but any memoir conventions: we receive only passing references to ages 0-20, and to the crucial intervening years between 20 and 40+, in the latter period of which our narrator discovers she's trans and begins living as a woman.
We as readers are deliciously, brilliantly cut off from major chunks of life –– Big Trans Events, Big Fame Events –– to instead hone in on the micro-moments of music, sex, heartbreak, loss, friendship, pleasure. This structural decision was an excellent one on Plante's part (and for added meta-fuckery, Plante is described in-text as the person helping her fictional narrator write the memoir) and creates the generative dissonance inherent to this book: on one hand, it is the story of a famous trans woman. On the other, we know only what she herself chooses to share.
June 23, 2024
This book might not be for everyone, but it absolutely was for me
July 15, 2023
hmm, i'm not sure where to start, here.
i guess i'll say that i wanted to like this a lot more than i did, and i kind of waffled on the rating, but some of the prose in the end hit me in the gut, so i bumped it up a bit more than my actual reading experience felt like overall.
the thing is, this is all about art, and music, and gender, and queerness, and trauma, and healing, and connections, and what makes up a life of a person, and how we stay alive, and what drives us, and how we learn to be inside our own brains and make that be okay. and i LOVE ALL OF THAT, but the execution of it wasn't my fav. i... HATE the "no quotation marks to indicate dialouge" thing. i just fucking hate it. it makes for a confusing read where you have to backtrack sometimes to see what a person is actually saying out loud or in their inner dialogue or not too often. it takes me out of the narrative a bit, and i've hated it every time i've encountered it in a book. i also found the structure and the premise of the book a little... idk, it didn't quite jive with me, overall. this was supposed to be a fictional memoir of a musican, but it felt like two letters to her exes in each section, which kept slightly throwing me off with the jumping back and forth in the narrative, in addition to the no dialogue indicators, i just got lost pretty frequently. since this was also a slow burn novel in that not a lot is actually happening it's a lot of internal musing, sex, talking about creating music and art in ways that i zoned out a bit so it took me AGES to get through.
it wasn't bad. i love that books this queer exist, but it might be more for someone else than it was for me. and that's a bummer, esp bc i felt like it had the potential to be a lot of things i love.
i guess i'll say that i wanted to like this a lot more than i did, and i kind of waffled on the rating, but some of the prose in the end hit me in the gut, so i bumped it up a bit more than my actual reading experience felt like overall.
the thing is, this is all about art, and music, and gender, and queerness, and trauma, and healing, and connections, and what makes up a life of a person, and how we stay alive, and what drives us, and how we learn to be inside our own brains and make that be okay. and i LOVE ALL OF THAT, but the execution of it wasn't my fav. i... HATE the "no quotation marks to indicate dialouge" thing. i just fucking hate it. it makes for a confusing read where you have to backtrack sometimes to see what a person is actually saying out loud or in their inner dialogue or not too often. it takes me out of the narrative a bit, and i've hated it every time i've encountered it in a book. i also found the structure and the premise of the book a little... idk, it didn't quite jive with me, overall. this was supposed to be a fictional memoir of a musican, but it felt like two letters to her exes in each section, which kept slightly throwing me off with the jumping back and forth in the narrative, in addition to the no dialogue indicators, i just got lost pretty frequently. since this was also a slow burn novel in that not a lot is actually happening it's a lot of internal musing, sex, talking about creating music and art in ways that i zoned out a bit so it took me AGES to get through.
it wasn't bad. i love that books this queer exist, but it might be more for someone else than it was for me. and that's a bummer, esp bc i felt like it had the potential to be a lot of things i love.
May 22, 2023
Nonlinear but broken into two distinct 'sides' this mix-tape of a book, shrouded in the guise of a fictional memoir, was tender and heartful. As readers, we get to experience Tracy in two different moments of her life, an androgenous trans egg, and as an aging transitioned trans woman.
While both sections are written to a relationship of that era, Tracy decides to linger more heavily on the moments of art, healing, and liberation. The messiness, and self-sabotaging, or traumatic moments are quick and glaring, but they affect her life for the better as she grows through them.
Reading this book was like listening to my favorite Mitski album (I'm still thinking about 'secret girls'). And as Tracy heals from an emotionally abusive relationship through the act of writing and liberated relationships with lovers, there are these beautiful distilled moments of catharsis, community, and liberation that were transcendent to read! Top tier book, please read it.
While both sections are written to a relationship of that era, Tracy decides to linger more heavily on the moments of art, healing, and liberation. The messiness, and self-sabotaging, or traumatic moments are quick and glaring, but they affect her life for the better as she grows through them.
Reading this book was like listening to my favorite Mitski album (I'm still thinking about 'secret girls'). And as Tracy heals from an emotionally abusive relationship through the act of writing and liberated relationships with lovers, there are these beautiful distilled moments of catharsis, community, and liberation that were transcendent to read! Top tier book, please read it.
April 5, 2024
i read this in one day while working a neural therapy convention where i watched a man get stabbed in the pee pee with a big needle so that may have affected my reading!!!
kinda bland, the fake lyrics were cringey but i enjoyed the arc of Tracy and her story. music started to feel v performative and idk if the constant references helped center me in the story?? def got exhausting after a while… most of this book is very descriptive sex scenes which also feel weird to include as the majority of a fictional memoir?
kinda bland, the fake lyrics were cringey but i enjoyed the arc of Tracy and her story. music started to feel v performative and idk if the constant references helped center me in the story?? def got exhausting after a while… most of this book is very descriptive sex scenes which also feel weird to include as the majority of a fictional memoir?
July 21, 2023
beautiful, perfect, trans excellence. i love you tracy.
May 20, 2025
UGH. i rlly love her writing! spicy and sad! i love the blending of fiction and reality, the stories feel so real and raw.
December 6, 2023
Conceptual, queer as fuck, and unreally real. Tracy’s “memoir” is so perfectly voiced that I forgot I was reading fiction. Plante ages the narrator’s voice from Side A to Side B so naturally…it’s amazing. This book is cool in so many ways.
August 29, 2023
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced version of the audiobook.
Trans books often feel like they are catered to the cis reader, which makes them feel like a bit “trans 101”. This book is not one of those books. It was unashamedly queer and trans, full of art, music and sex and made me feel like I was witnessing queer culture being made right in front of me. I loved seeing queer joy and struggles and exploring the main character’s life and the people around them, despite their experiences being vastly different from mine. There is something so magical about just knowing that queer people exist and live their lives (even fictional ones).
Making this book a fictional memoir allowed it to stay down to earth and realistic while still being fictional and I really love the idea. The characters felt like real people with vibrant lives and interests. For me personally, the style of writing was a bit hard to digest as the narration jumped between different moments and went on tangents even in the middle of an event happening. I guess as a plot-oriented reader, I just wanted to focus on the action. That is not to say the writing wasn’t done well or wasn’t interesting, I just had a harder time with it and especially in audiobook format, it was a bit hard to follow. Though, I do love it when the author also does the narration for the audiobook, which is the case here. It gave me a feeling of being as close to the author’s intent as possible.
Trans books often feel like they are catered to the cis reader, which makes them feel like a bit “trans 101”. This book is not one of those books. It was unashamedly queer and trans, full of art, music and sex and made me feel like I was witnessing queer culture being made right in front of me. I loved seeing queer joy and struggles and exploring the main character’s life and the people around them, despite their experiences being vastly different from mine. There is something so magical about just knowing that queer people exist and live their lives (even fictional ones).
Making this book a fictional memoir allowed it to stay down to earth and realistic while still being fictional and I really love the idea. The characters felt like real people with vibrant lives and interests. For me personally, the style of writing was a bit hard to digest as the narration jumped between different moments and went on tangents even in the middle of an event happening. I guess as a plot-oriented reader, I just wanted to focus on the action. That is not to say the writing wasn’t done well or wasn’t interesting, I just had a harder time with it and especially in audiobook format, it was a bit hard to follow. Though, I do love it when the author also does the narration for the audiobook, which is the case here. It gave me a feeling of being as close to the author’s intent as possible.
October 8, 2023
I read this book on recommendation of Laura Sackton of Queer Your Year, who had put it on my radar forever ago but once she wrote “I cannot understand why the queer internet isn’t screaming about this book!” (https://bookriot.com/queer-books-from...) I finally requested a copy of the audiobook on NetGalley. And I have to say….I CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY THE QUEER INTERNET ISNT SCREAMING ABOUT THIS BOOK!!! I AM SCREAMING!
I was enraptured from the first lines; the discussion of “shimmering” sets the tone for exactly what this fictional memoir is—something gorgeous and dazzling and ephemeral and possibly not quite real just beyond our fingertips. These characters are rich and complex and so queer and so messy and so so human. The side A/side B narrative structure was really neat. Gosh I loved this book. What a revelation. An added bonus of course is that the author narrates the audiobook—I will read anything Hazel Jane Plante writes wowza.
Also just be prepared for some descriptive ~spicy~ content.
Disclaimer: I received an audiobook ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was enraptured from the first lines; the discussion of “shimmering” sets the tone for exactly what this fictional memoir is—something gorgeous and dazzling and ephemeral and possibly not quite real just beyond our fingertips. These characters are rich and complex and so queer and so messy and so so human. The side A/side B narrative structure was really neat. Gosh I loved this book. What a revelation. An added bonus of course is that the author narrates the audiobook—I will read anything Hazel Jane Plante writes wowza.
Also just be prepared for some descriptive ~spicy~ content.
Disclaimer: I received an audiobook ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
March 14, 2023
|| ANY OTHER CITY ||
#gifted/@arsenalpulp @zgstories
✍🏻
An inventive, heart-wrenching, sexy trans femme novel on queer intimacy, identity, friendship, and art healing tauma.
An auto-fiction memoir that reads very intimately and honestly. I loved the format, that of a two sided record. This gives the reader a view of our protagonists life over many decades. Side A the early years, Side B the more recent years. It was a wonderful blending of fact and fiction, big messy emotions, finding yourself and getting through the darkness with friendship and artistry. Much enjoyed!
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
#gifted/@arsenalpulp @zgstories
✍🏻
An inventive, heart-wrenching, sexy trans femme novel on queer intimacy, identity, friendship, and art healing tauma.
An auto-fiction memoir that reads very intimately and honestly. I loved the format, that of a two sided record. This gives the reader a view of our protagonists life over many decades. Side A the early years, Side B the more recent years. It was a wonderful blending of fact and fiction, big messy emotions, finding yourself and getting through the darkness with friendship and artistry. Much enjoyed!
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
August 30, 2024
edit: it's been months and i still think about this book often so i felt it deserved its five stars
i think there could not have been a more perfect book to stumble onto on a quiet saturday night, i have so many feelings. this is unlike a lot of the things i have previously read, it plays around with so many elements and the usage of the second person pov was simply brilliant. i wish this book could have been hundreds of pages longer because i did not want it to end, i just wanted to have a few endless pages to read from every night like i have been doing since starting it. i am feeling so many emotions
i think there could not have been a more perfect book to stumble onto on a quiet saturday night, i have so many feelings. this is unlike a lot of the things i have previously read, it plays around with so many elements and the usage of the second person pov was simply brilliant. i wish this book could have been hundreds of pages longer because i did not want it to end, i just wanted to have a few endless pages to read from every night like i have been doing since starting it. i am feeling so many emotions
May 28, 2023
damn I loved this sharp, sexy book!!! Brilliant formatting, hot sex, gutting self exploration.
August 6, 2023
Any Other City is like Little Blue, but with the titular show swapped for 90s Riot Grrrl, and the death mourning/celebrating swapped for the loss of lovers, and tons of weird & cool kinky queer sex. If that's your bag, why haven't you read it yet? Nerd.
It is good, but less good, to me at least. Part of that is just because I'm a 20something and have no ideas about 90s Transsexual Riot Grrrl beyond what this book tells me, but City is also more broad, open, social compared to Little Blue. It has friends and lovers and people and sex, so, so very much sex. It is wider in scope than Little Blue, bigger and more ambitious, with messiness coming as a potential requirement with that. It feels a bit less focused.
Despite being one of those fun-hating aces who is put off by all of the cool/weird/kinky/fucking, I still find that Plante's close-in, familiar, cozy examinations of transfemme life resonate emotionally. JOIN THE TRANS FEMME MILITIA TODAY! It's a really awesome book, whether or not you are in its 1993 or 2019. Following both makes it truly two-sided, and the perspective is appreciated greatly.
Because there isn't as earth-shaking a fictional death to mourn, City makes more time for being funny, which is rad. Oysters are also an acquired taste, like avocados, or cock and ball torture; Lola is a transsexual cat. It is weird and wonderful.
Also though, City reminds me about how being queer makes me uncomfortable and prefer not to exist. The hypersexualised nature of basically all queer and many trans spaces, a little look at the recovery process from vaginoplasty, the fact that appreciating yourself for being trans and having typically 'masculine' features can be as much faking it to yourself as genuine. It is important because of this. Also, trans women cannot be fisted, which is lame.
Historically and in terms of the list, City is also significant! While we're still short of seeing the Hitachi(Vibratex!) Magic Wand used correctly, City does give us a trans woman using a strapon, which is new to fiction! Congrats to Hazel Jane Plante for adding to our stories in a big way.
I like most things about Any Other City. I didn't find it to be as much of a beautiful, soul-destroying emotional blitz as Little Blue Encyclopedia was, but you might find it to be better, and it is clearly of extremely high quality. Come for the sex, trauma, and rocknroll, stay for some of the best character study in books.
It is good, but less good, to me at least. Part of that is just because I'm a 20something and have no ideas about 90s Transsexual Riot Grrrl beyond what this book tells me, but City is also more broad, open, social compared to Little Blue. It has friends and lovers and people and sex, so, so very much sex. It is wider in scope than Little Blue, bigger and more ambitious, with messiness coming as a potential requirement with that. It feels a bit less focused.
Despite being one of those fun-hating aces who is put off by all of the cool/weird/kinky/fucking, I still find that Plante's close-in, familiar, cozy examinations of transfemme life resonate emotionally. JOIN THE TRANS FEMME MILITIA TODAY! It's a really awesome book, whether or not you are in its 1993 or 2019. Following both makes it truly two-sided, and the perspective is appreciated greatly.
Because there isn't as earth-shaking a fictional death to mourn, City makes more time for being funny, which is rad. Oysters are also an acquired taste, like avocados, or cock and ball torture; Lola is a transsexual cat. It is weird and wonderful.
Also though, City reminds me about how being queer makes me uncomfortable and prefer not to exist. The hypersexualised nature of basically all queer and many trans spaces, a little look at the recovery process from vaginoplasty, the fact that appreciating yourself for being trans and having typically 'masculine' features can be as much faking it to yourself as genuine. It is important because of this. Also, trans women cannot be fisted, which is lame.
Historically and in terms of the list, City is also significant! While we're still short of seeing the Hitachi(Vibratex!) Magic Wand used correctly, City does give us a trans woman using a strapon, which is new to fiction! Congrats to Hazel Jane Plante for adding to our stories in a big way.
I like most things about Any Other City. I didn't find it to be as much of a beautiful, soul-destroying emotional blitz as Little Blue Encyclopedia was, but you might find it to be better, and it is clearly of extremely high quality. Come for the sex, trauma, and rocknroll, stay for some of the best character study in books.
January 19, 2026
Sono incredibilmente frustrata da questo libro. Si tratta di un'autobiografia di finzione in due parti e ho adorato la prima:
•La tenerezza dei momenti intimi di una ragazza trans che ancora non realizza di esserlo, con una persona capace di trattarla con cura e di permetterle di essere vulnerabile e spaventata;
•La tensione tra il bisogno di andarsene in un'altra città per scappare da se stessa e scoprire nuove possibilità — nuove architetture per il proprio sé — e l'amore intenso che la protagonista prova per la fidanzata, un rifugio sicuro nel luogo sbagliato; scoprire che non esiste nessun destino che ti leghi a una persona se scegli di non starle accanto
•La transfobia internalizzata che emerge nel momento in cui la protagonista vede persone trans non-passing, cosa che la porta a reprimere la sua identità credendo che essere una donna trans non desiderabile sia un rischio troppo grosso da pagare, nonostante il prezzo della dissociazione sia una vita di sofferenza. La maniera in cui vedere donne trans non-passing essere contente, perché indifferenti allo sguardo cisessista della società, la porti a una nuova consapevolezza che rimane, però, troppo fragile per darle il coraggio di essere la donna che è.
Nella seconda parte, invece, non ho trovato nulla di interessante e, anzi, ero annoiata dalle continue scene di sesso che ho trovato personalmente inutili e ripetitive. Mi è sembrato tutto superficiale e poco importante. Il rapporto con la ex e il trauma derivante mi sembrano toccati in modo sbrigativo, così come tutto ciò che riguarda la vita della protagonista che non sia fisting, pompini e nomi creativi per neo-vagine.
Avendo amato la prima parte così tanto da considerarla da 5 stelle e la seconda così poco da trovarla insignificante, purtroppo non posso dire che il libro mi sia piaciuto. Grande delusione, considerato che il suo primo libro è il mio libro preferito in assoluto. Sigh.
•La tenerezza dei momenti intimi di una ragazza trans che ancora non realizza di esserlo, con una persona capace di trattarla con cura e di permetterle di essere vulnerabile e spaventata;
•La tensione tra il bisogno di andarsene in un'altra città per scappare da se stessa e scoprire nuove possibilità — nuove architetture per il proprio sé — e l'amore intenso che la protagonista prova per la fidanzata, un rifugio sicuro nel luogo sbagliato; scoprire che non esiste nessun destino che ti leghi a una persona se scegli di non starle accanto
•La transfobia internalizzata che emerge nel momento in cui la protagonista vede persone trans non-passing, cosa che la porta a reprimere la sua identità credendo che essere una donna trans non desiderabile sia un rischio troppo grosso da pagare, nonostante il prezzo della dissociazione sia una vita di sofferenza. La maniera in cui vedere donne trans non-passing essere contente, perché indifferenti allo sguardo cisessista della società, la porti a una nuova consapevolezza che rimane, però, troppo fragile per darle il coraggio di essere la donna che è.
Nella seconda parte, invece, non ho trovato nulla di interessante e, anzi, ero annoiata dalle continue scene di sesso che ho trovato personalmente inutili e ripetitive. Mi è sembrato tutto superficiale e poco importante. Il rapporto con la ex e il trauma derivante mi sembrano toccati in modo sbrigativo, così come tutto ciò che riguarda la vita della protagonista che non sia fisting, pompini e nomi creativi per neo-vagine.
Avendo amato la prima parte così tanto da considerarla da 5 stelle e la seconda così poco da trovarla insignificante, purtroppo non posso dire che il libro mi sia piaciuto. Grande delusione, considerato che il suo primo libro è il mio libro preferito in assoluto. Sigh.
September 2, 2023
There is something so personal in having the author read their own story to you and Hazel Jane Plante does an excellent job at bringing her book to life.
I enjoyed how you could see Tracy's life at two very different points in her life while that seemed unconnected whilst also showing the reader how they connect and reverberate throughout. She is also a songwriter and oftentimes her thoughts and ideas are made visible through her craft - I always enjoy seeing creative people.
There is also a lot of sex. I personally could have done with less of it or at least with a little more purpose to those scenes since I feel like quite a few were there to shock the reader as to how kinky/exhibitionist/open to new experiences the main character was to it which doesn't really work for me. Plante is frank with her depictions and discussion surrounding trans bodies which I can appreciate however.
I wished the fictional memoir aspects where even stronger. I loved the first introduction and the little interludes on how the story was created but I wanted even more of that. It reads like a normal literary fiction title.
I received an advanced reading copy from ECW Press Audio through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed how you could see Tracy's life at two very different points in her life while that seemed unconnected whilst also showing the reader how they connect and reverberate throughout. She is also a songwriter and oftentimes her thoughts and ideas are made visible through her craft - I always enjoy seeing creative people.
There is also a lot of sex. I personally could have done with less of it or at least with a little more purpose to those scenes since I feel like quite a few were there to shock the reader as to how kinky/exhibitionist/open to new experiences the main character was to it which doesn't really work for me. Plante is frank with her depictions and discussion surrounding trans bodies which I can appreciate however.
I wished the fictional memoir aspects where even stronger. I loved the first introduction and the little interludes on how the story was created but I wanted even more of that. It reads like a normal literary fiction title.
I received an advanced reading copy from ECW Press Audio through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
October 5, 2023
I loved the inventive storytelling in this fictional memoir of a trans indie rock musician. It had a focus on art and trauma and was fantastically written, full of raw emotion. I enjoyed the formatting of the story told in two parts, Side A and Side B. If you love literary character-driven books focusing on queer stories, I would highly recommend this for you.
Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.
Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.
May 1, 2023
This book is a fucking mess, and I ended up loving it.
I loved her first book deeply, and this did not hit me well at first. I didn’t like reading the first half, and then second half was messy and jumbled. But then it was messy and jumbled in a specific way that was extremely recognizable and true, and then I loved it and it gave me a lot of feelings.
Also it has someone amazing sex scenes, some of the best I’ve ever read in a book.
I loved her first book deeply, and this did not hit me well at first. I didn’t like reading the first half, and then second half was messy and jumbled. But then it was messy and jumbled in a specific way that was extremely recognizable and true, and then I loved it and it gave me a lot of feelings.
Also it has someone amazing sex scenes, some of the best I’ve ever read in a book.
April 26, 2025
one of the hottest books i have read in a while, did not know lesbian cruising was possible but damn! so much trans joy intermingled w the messiness of understanding one's gender, the pain of relationships and yet, the enduring love. the structure along with the aspect of the narrator addressing their two lovers was incredibly executed, i really enjoyed reading it!!
July 5, 2023
wow wow wow. perfect
September 13, 2023
horny + funny + sad. really enjoyed it! first half has some of the best depiction of pre-transition clueless girl brain I've read. second half has a whole bunch of fisting. something for everyone 🖤🖤
November 13, 2023
Amazing book, and it was a heavy read but by the end I could feel the joy in Tracy’s life expand and it allowed me to feel lighter and at ease. HIGHLY recommend!
January 10, 2024
so hot, so tender
Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews