CW/TW: misgendering genderqueer/nonbinary person, bathroom panic
This book pissed me off so much that I bailed almost a quarter of the way in. As a genderqueer woman, I cannot recommend it and I regret picking it up in the first place. I was so mad about this book that I rage wrote the whole review on my phone while laying in bed, because this was supposed to be my fun bedtime read. You know you’re mad when you’re willing to write a whole ass review with just your thumbs.
Dana is Jewish and it’s Christmas Eve. She’s driving from Cleveland to Chicago so she can spend Christmas with her grandmother. It didn’t sound like they were celebrating the holiday, but I didn’t read far enough to confirm. Anyway, Dana’s car breaks down in Indiana and a very lovely pig farmer named Charlie comes to Dana’s rescue. Charlie is heading to Chicago the next day anyway, so Charlie offers to bump up the trip by a day.
Here’s where it started to fall apart for me: Dana can’t quite clock Charlie’s gender, although she thinks Charlie looks like a woman. While they’re driving, they talk about Dana being a lesbian and this happens:
She tossed me a quick look, I suspected to gauge my willingness to accept whatever she might be about to say. “I’m queer, too. I don’t like the word ‘lesbian.’ I guess I just don’t always feel like a girl.”
“Do you identify as trans?”
Charlie reflected on this for a moment. “No. Maybe? I think genderqueer is more suitable.”
The first kick in the teeth came five paragraphs later.
Dana asks what Charlie’s preferred pronouns are (which is a problem in and of itself because it gives room for invalidating them). Charlie says, “They. ‘She’ is okay. My family all call me ‘she.’” And then Dana uses she/her for Charlie for the whole rest of the book (I spot checked and it was there through to the end).
Y’all, I was screaming (in my mind, to avoid waking my kids) WHY ASK IF YOU’RE GOING TO USE WHATEVER PRONOUNS YOU WANT ANYWAY?
Even worse is that she knows better! I know this because Dana responds to Charlie with “That’s pretty cool,” and then thinks:
Oh, wow, that was probably the worst possible thing that could have slid out of my mouth. What a loser I was. Not only did I lack panache, but I was borderline offensive. Cool? Which part was cool exactly? That she was bucking the binary gender system or the part where her family didn’t give a crap and still used pronouns Charlie didn’t like? What was cool about that?
Does Dana also not give a crap? Because she also still uses pronouns that Charlie doesn’t like, just like Charlie’s family. To me, that’s much more offensive than not knowing how to react.
This is where I quit reading the first time, but that whole election thing happened and I forgot about that scene, so I picked it up again after taking a break and I have regrets.
It got SO MUCH WORSE because of that bathroom panic I called out in the warning above.
When Dana and Charlie make their first pit stop, Dana has to pee real bad (as you do) and rushes to the bathroom. She’s surprised that Charlie chooses the women’s bathroom too, to which I raised my eyebrow as high as it could go. Charlie makes Dana mad by commenting on how long Dana was peeing, which might seem like a weird detail to call out, but it’s important for understanding the quote in the spoiler tag. When they exit the bathroom, an angry man is waiting for Charlie because his wife thought Charlie was a guy and didn’t feel safe in the bathroom. Dana pops off at the guy, against Charlie’s wishes, when all Charlie wants is to avoid being harmed by him.
“Did I ask you to defend me?”
“That guy was out of line.”
“Do you think provoking him is going to get him back in line? That’s how people end up killed, Dana. This isn’t about political grandstanding. It’s about survival.”
I thought Charlie should show a lot more gratitude, frankly, and I snapped. “How are you supposed to survive if you don’t stand up for yourself? And why did you use the women’s room anyway? You couldn’t have gone in the men’s? Do you know how uncomfortable that made me?”
“Oh, you too, huh? You’re just like that guy!”
“No, I am not! I wasn’t uncomfortable because you’re the wrong gender! I was uncomfortable because I don’t like people hearing me pee!”
I read that argument three times, flipped back and reread the part when they’re in the bathroom together, and then read the fight twice more just to make sure I wasn’t reading it wrong. My responses, in order:
- Fuck Dana for expecting gratitude, instead of listening to Charlie.
- Fuck her also for telling Charlie how they should handle situations like that when Dana has no ideas what it’s like to be genderqueer and living in rural Indiana.
- I am incandescent with rage that she would dare suggest which bathroom Charlie should use, and I am further enraged that she tries to claim she said that because Charlie commented on how long she was peeing for. I already saw she was surprised when Charlie first chose the women’s room. I have the receipts.
I stuck around just long enough to see Dana apologize in a way that gave me no sense of what she was actually sorry for. That’s when I bailed because I deserve better than reading about a genderqueer person finding love with someone who willfully misgenders them and then tries to tell them which bathroom they should have used. I will never know if it lives up to the road trip romance hijinks that the blurb promises, and I do not care.
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Thanks!
I can’t blame you, I would have noped out of there as soon as Dana asked for the preferred pronouns then DIDN’T USE THEM. That’s not someone you want as a love interest, and I say this as a cis woman. I’m highly entertained by the image of you rage punching your review in with your thumbs, however, so I hope it was cathartic!
Ugh! Thank you for your service Tara.
That was so bad I actually forgot it was a romance until the last paragraph of the review. To think Dana will have to fall in love with THAT person is a nightmare.
Sorry! Not Dana! Charlie! Dana is absolute trash (sorry, haven’t finished my coffe yet)
You know, I’m cis het and 61, so I grew up long before people used terms like “nonbinary” and “gender queer,” and when someone tells me what pronoun they prefer, I try to remember to use it. And so does my 86-year-old mother and 91-year-old father (this just came up recently when we were told a family member is now identifying as nonbinary and wants to be called by a new, gender-neutral name). It’s not a political statement, it’s fucking common courtesy to call people what they ask to be called. Just like if I ask someone to call me Ruth, I find it rude if they call me Ruthie.
I don’t know how anyone with any knowledge of LGBTQ+ issues doesn’t know about the dangers of using the “wrong” bathroom. It’s not like transgender bathroom usage isn’t a political issue. Commenting on how long someone pees does sound like a violation of public bathroom etiquette, though, so the whole scene is just weird and unrealistic.
Somewhere in this sequence I would have come to the conclusion that the author doesn’t know what she’s doing and dumped it just for that. I’ve been known to dump a book for less offensive idiocy.
Pronouns matter. If you bothered to ask, you should bother to USE them. Even Dana’s internal dialogue in the quotes mis-genders.
I actually felt a little sick reading this. The complete disregard for Charlie’s safety is so violating and saying which bathroom they need to use based on—what? How Dana thinks Charlie would be perceived? Not wanting to be in same bathroom as someone gender queer??
Also “I hate people hearing me pee” is sure as hell a thing to say to someone when you just used a public restroom.
Glad to be warned about this one.
I had just been thinking the other day that it had been a long time since we had a book rant or good F review, and here you are, Tara. Thanks. Although, I feel you could have been rantier. I know I would be.
And what @Ruth said.
Thanks for the warning, Tara, won’t be wasting my money on this one!
Several things – use the preferred pronoun! if they say, “she is also OK,” that is not the preferred pronoun. Second, don’t fight for someone if they don’t want that battle right then. Allyship is difficult and the hardest and most important part is realizing that I am not in charge in that particular situation. Third, as per Discovery Magazine, 10/17/13, all mammals pee for approx 21 seconds. What changes is how fast the pee comes out. IDKY but, for some reason, that just seemed a stupid thing to have in a romance book and to have it wrong, too.
Anyhow, thanks for taking one for the group. I don’t think I will be reading this anytime soon.
Tara, thank you so much! And Ruth, right on 😀 One of my best friends is in her mid 70s and I’m 20 years younger. She has no trouble being courteous and calling people what they want to be called. She does hit me up with gender and sexuality questions because she cares about being respectful and terminology is changing and expanding. I hope I’m as chill, awesome and curious when I grow up. I am resisting the growing up part to be honest.
As the mom of a transgender daughter who gets purposefully and rudely called the wrong gender, I thank you for this review! I worked with a nonbinary person, and our store manager allowed them to were a pronoun badge which said “Them, They, Theirs.” Most people tried to be nice about it, but every once in a while we’d get an a-hole who would talk to them using a female pronoun, exaggerating it as they said it. Of course I had my coworker’s back, but I will never understand someone being personally offended by another person’s gender. What possible difference can it make for you?
She doesn’t want anyone to hear her pee? Aim for the porcelain! (I know it’s not logistically as easy for women as for men, but come on—if it’s that big a deal, figure out a way to not be overheard!)
Carrie G, same! My kid is trans, also. Thanks so much for this review, Tara! I’ve been gearing up to start reading holiday romances and I will immediately put this one in the “hell, no!” pile!
It isn’t even POSSIBLE for a human to pee for significantly longer than any other mammal, so that part’s giving me the WTFs: https://www.theverge.com/2013/10/19/4855076/the-law-of-urination-mammals-take-21-seconds-to-pee