When I picked up this book I was pretty excited, and although I could feel engrossed most of the time, overall I wouldn't say this book does much other than tell a story I've already heard and in more interesting ways. The writing is mediocre (no, it's not a good idea to use a cliche and just have your narrator acknowledge the cliche, that's bad editing), sometimes entirely too obvious, and although simplicity can sometimes benefit a writer, it just doesn't work here. For the most part. There we...

Frank (formerly Francisca) hadn't seen his father for over 20 years when he gets a call from him announcing that he's dying. Frank decides to take care of him, and because his father is not only dying, but now completely blind, he decides not to correct him when he calls him Francisca. His father left him an unusual legacy, part of which leads him to seek out his insane, estranged mother. She refuses to let him in the door, and thrusts a wad of money at him. Frank decides it's time to really bre...

Loved it! This book is rich for discussion, on some Sylvia Plath Bell Jar, Latino psychological thriller shit. This book urges you to read against the narrator—question everything.

A good book I happened across at the downtown library. It was recommended by Eileen Myles and Michelle Tea, but I did not let that prevent me from reading it. It was worth it....the trans character was written about without a constant mention of their trans status....and the girlfriend reminded me so much of an ex it was creepy. Good story...

Slow start but well written, haunting even. Would highly recommend.

An honest and revealing look at a journey through Hispanic-American culture, contemporary love and the navigation of personal and gender identity. The characters are complex and intriguing.

I liked this book,it wasn't the best I've ever read, but I got pulled into the characters. Like Son was an interesting look at growing into being an adult, that sometimes what what we want in life is rather normal, even if we have defined ourselves as 'freaks.' Frank has to deal with his family and an imagined past, loves and fears. How do we get to where we want to be in this world. It seems like Frank and Nat's journeys are really just starting.On a side note, I am so glad that authors are wri...

i wanted to like this book, but it was seriously flawed in its construction. it's the story of a young trans man. he has a bit of a stormy relationship with his father, who was largely absent while he was growing up, but they re-connect soon after the protaganist transitions & the dad is starting to feel his mortality. eventually the father gets sick & the protag takes care of him while he dies. after the father's death, the young man finds his inheritance: a box full of love letters exchanged b...

Not without its virtues - liked that it was a narrative with a trans male protagonist but wasn't entirely about transitioning - and some of the place descriptions were good. It's written like a conventional plot-driven narrative, though, but nothing happens in the plot and I'm not convinced there was any real character growth, either. A lot of the plot elements felt fantastical in a poorly researched sort of way, and the narrative perspective is frustratingly tight - we're trapped inside Frank's...

I really, really wanted to like this book, but honestly, it was quite boring. Though, it is refreshing to read a book about a trans character that isn't all about gender stuff. That being said, I expected more from the story itself.

The problem with this book is the same problem you find in a lot of the Art of the Other - a silenced group is so glad to have something that speaks in their voice that they're willing to overlook that it's not very good. This book is horribly written, with utterly uninteresting characters and no compelling narrative. I kept reading because there are few novels with non-gender-normative characters (see, there's that hook again), but when it was finished, all I was left with was, "That's the endi...

This book tells a story that is often left untold in contemporary literature. For that, I commend the author. However, there were times that were a struggle to get through due to overdrawn description of emotions. Despite this, I would still recommend the book overall.

When you read this wonderful book--and I hope that you will--you will discover that (Gawd, I hate to sound so cliche) . . . that transgendered people are people too. There, I said it. The author's trick in this book is to take for granted that being transgendered is no real big deal in America anymore--so in a way then this is a kind of postmodern presumptive novel (did I coin a new genre?). It presumes that if you are a female-to-male transgendered person that the most improtant thing in your l...

Meandering and at times improbable (you bought persimmons at the Union Square farmers market? Really?) this book is nevertheless a quick, engaging read. Frank and his father are both well-drawn; one wishes the same courtesy had been extended to the female characters - at least the ones alive in the present. Neither Frank's mother nor his girlfriend appear to have much purpose in life except to cause emotional crises for Frank. The poet/idol and Frank's paternal grandmother come out a bit more ro...

I had mixed feelings. I struggle with the typical crazy femme I keep encountering in queer fiction. Where are all the queer femmes who financially support their partners and aren't emotionally manipulative? What I liked best was that the characters just happen to be queer/trans and while that isn't tangential it's not central to the story either. The writing style is beautiful and rough in a queer-vegan-anarchist way.

This is a good book that I didn‘t really like. Written in close first person POV and from time to time the narrator addresses the reader. Being in Frank‘s head was claustrophobic even though he‘s likable. I suppose we're all primarily concerned with ourselves, in our heads, but Frank didn't have much of a life outside his head that was shared with readers. The opening of the book was strong as he was reunited as an adult with his father. However, the bulk of the book was set in NYC where he meet...

This book has all the ingredients for a good read (FTM trangendered Latino from California moving to NYC after the death of his father) but fell flat. The main characters quickly became annoying. I have enough self absorbed, self pitying people to deal with in real life, so why should i care about these characters? Ugh.

With characters that are highly underrepresented in literature and all the potential this book had to tell an interesting story, I was really disappointed that I didn't like it. The narrative was awkward/clumsy, and it felt like the characters and storyline never developed fully. I stuck it out to the end hoping it would get better, but it never did.

Read for LGBTQ+ book club. Intriguing and I feel like I must have missed some of the symbolism or metaphors or something like that, because it ended so abruptly with the reunion between Frank and Natalie, his manic pixie dreamgirl. It had a mix of lyrical and confusing writing, but moved quite smoothly. While I did worry about Frank, his decisions were so erratic (perhaps to mirror Natalie's), that I couldn't quite keep track or see the logic behind it. And maybe that was the point...