the subtweet - vivek shraya
BOOKS★2/5
published by ecw press (2020)
i just feel like the word that describes how i feel about this book is unsatisfactory. from the first chapter i already wasn’t interested in the characters, the style of writing, or the story really, but i wanted to give the book a chance to redeem itself. i think none of the characters really evolve much, and in a book with themes of social justice, identity, community and artistic ownership, it seems to fail in every instance of holding ITSELF accountable. there is exactly ONE sentence where rukmini mentions she is transgender. while i understand a lot of readers and authors alike are exhausted with “gender stories” where the whole premise is about the gender identity and struggle with transness, this book was specifically ABOUT community identity and hegemony, so ignoring this identity that was haphazardly added to a main character and never again addressed was disappointing at best. rukmini and neela also seem to be written as caricatures of the catty brown woman with opinions on everyone, and ONCE AGAIN in a book so focussed on social identity, it doesn’t feel narratively appropriate to have them so incredibly unlikeable. i think this book truly lacked heart; it could be redeemed if neela and rukmini were characters that i was rooting for to find each other and make their unlikely friendship work, but from the BEGINNING it is established that they’re not really a good fit for eachother. the jump between neela being stand-offish and borderline rude to codependent and obsessive is unexplained and undetailed. the perspective and time jumps are confusing, and the ending gave me absolutely nothing to chew on after-the-fact, and didnt really hammer any of what i THINK the intended messages of the book were home. basically like, what was the point? im overall disappointed because in theory, a story about POC women navigating the complexity of friendship written by a transfemme brown torontonian is SO up my alley, but this story simply didnt deliver.
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