John Boyne has been on the receiving end of some serious backlash since he penned his Irish Times article about his support for trans rights but his rejection of the word ‘cis.’ For the record, I am a huge fan of Boyne’s work (his Ladder to the Sky was far and away the best book I read last year); I support trans rights; and I have no objection to being referred to as cis. Quite honestly, I am not sure why anybody would take umbrage with this; I believe our language should be as fair and inclusive as possible, and encompass everybody’s experiences of gender so we can eradicate inequalities between gender identities.
Books like Boyne’s My Brother’s Name is Jessica — targeted at young readers, whose perceptions and attitudes are still being shaped — are vital for their education and understanding. And mine, too. I am a cisgender, heterosexual male; there is an inherent privilege attached to this identity, which I hope will be rectified in my lifetime. But this means I will never know the trauma of feeling like I am not born in the right body. Through books — fiction and non-fiction — I hope to learn, understand, and empathise. So I believe novels dealing with the subject are obliged to both entertain and educate, which might be asking too much, but it’s what I demand.
On a surface level, I quite enjoyed My Brother’s Name Is Jessica. I raced through it, chortled in all the places the author hoped to induce a chuckle, and enjoyed seeing the world through young Sam Waver’s eyes as he struggled to comprehend his older brother’s transition from Jason — star footballer and one of the most popular kids in school — to Jessica. Sam just doesn’t get it: why does his brother want to change? Because no matter how often Jessica tries to articulate what it’s like to live in a body that feels wrong, it’s an entirely foreign concept to Sam. For his parents, too; comically awful, villainous people, and politicians to boot, with the top job in mind, and not happy about the potential political repercussions of their eldest son’s actions. In their minds, he is being viciously selfish.
Because the book is framed exclusively from the perspective of a cisgender boy, comfortable in his body and gender identity, readers never truly gain insight into what it’s like for Jessica. Which I suppose is fine; if the book is designed to showcase a family’s gradual developing compassion and empathy for their daughter, it succeeds, to a degree; but the potential emotion of this story is undercut by most of the cast’s portrayal as comical caricatures. There’s an undercurrent of slapstick, which makes My Brother’s Name is Jessica eminently readable, but lacking the emotional profundity I’ve come to expect from Boyne.
ISBN: 9780241376171
Format: Paperback / softback
Pages: 240
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date: 16-Apr-2019
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Unafraid of emotion, though without a moment of wretched sentimentality, Bodies of Men magnificently conveys love, courage, endurance and comradeship straining against the cataclysmic backdrop of World War II. With unobtrusively elegant prose, Nigel Featherstone has crafted a vidid evocation of the arduous complexities of love between two men inured by the traumas of conflict. The result is something very special indeed: equal parts compelling, harrowing, and tender.
In The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, debut novelist Felicity McLean explores the long echoes of emotional trauma and guilt born of the disappearance of three siblings twenty years ago.
When Vernon Moore learns his son Caleb — in gaol for assaulting his wife, and abandoned by his parents as a result — is being regularly brutalised by Brendan Cahill, he decides to intervene and negotiate a truce with Brendan’s father. But Vernon’s decision to approach Ernie Cahill, the head of Newbury’s drug-dealing operation, sets off an unstoppable chain of escalating violence.
The 14th and final Bernie Gunther novel takes the world-weary investigator back to the beginning: Berlin, 1928, the eve of the Nazi rise to power, with Gunther just promoted to the Murder Commission, and two serial killers on the loose.
The clock is ticking for Brighton Detective Superintendent Roy Grace — and a teenage kidnap victim plucked from the heaving Amex Stadium on the day of Brighton and Hove Albion’s first match of their debut Premier League season.
I was delighted when DC Comics revealed their new Young Adult and Middle Grade imprints: DC Ink & DC Zoom. Without 1995’s Adventures of Superman #526 (pictured) I probably wouldn’t be a reader, because this comic turned me into an even more rabid Superman man, but more importantly, sealed my love of comic books, and began a school holiday tradition with my father of schlepping to the comic shop. From my love of comic books grew and overwhelming love of storytelling in all of its forms; I became addicted to stories. And that has remained true to this day; it’s why I work in a bookshop. So since DC’s announcement, I’ve been eager to see how their iconic superheroes are being introduced to an entirely new generation of young readers. I am not entirely convinced.
Super Sons, Vol. 1: The Polarshield Project by Ridley Pearson and illustrated by Ile Gonzalez reimagines the sons of Superman and Batman — Jon Kent and Damian Wayne — but probably doesn’t go far enough in terms of rejuvenating these characters for kids without an established interest in the DC Universe. Maybe Pearson didn’t have carte blanche to go nuts, but the minor tweaks made to Damian — sorry, ‘Ian’ —and Jon’s origin are very tame; I want to live in a world where the natural predilection for kids plucking Batman and Superman comics off the shelf isn’t that these heroes are white guys with capes. The introduction of Candace — a princess with a mysterious background sure to be fleshed out in future volumes — is very cool, though she feels underused here. The plot itself offers interesting commentary on global warming — in this world the polar ice caps have melted, and the cities along the coasts are flooding and uninhabitable, despite the Wayne Corporation’s manmade flood walls — but its all very fleeting. That’s my biggest gripe with this first volume; it jumps between perspectives and scenes with reckless abandon, never allowing the reader a chance to settle and understand its characters, or to fully develop its themes. Its protagonists are rarely more than stereotypes. I realise kids have short attention spans, but the way to engross them isn’t to flick rapidly between action set pieces; let them develop an affinity with the characters; make them want to spend more time with them. One thing is for sure: they’ll happily study Ile Gonzalez’s crisp, clean artwork.
Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne reinvents Mera, the heir to the throne of Xebel, an ocean realm ruled by the Atlanteans, for a YA audience. When we meet Mera she is fiery and feisty; the kind of young woman who can kick ass and takes names, and isn’t afraid to do so, political consequences be damned. When she sets off on a mission to kill Arthur Curry on the surface world — Arthur being the Atlantean Royal Heir, unbeknownst to him — you can’t help but cheer; this princess isn’t going to simply oblige the whims of the powerful men that surround her. But everything crumbles — her plan, and the book — when she falls (almost immediately) in love with Arthur, which totally dilutes her sovereignty; not because she’s not allowed to be in love, but just the abruptness of it, totally undercuts the strength of her character. 