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★★★★★ 5
You will laugh and cry
Format: Kindle
Luckily, I stumbled into a link to this book on Transfeminine Review. One warning: take your eye makeup off before reading. You will laugh till you cry and that is not a good look with mascara.
The plot resembles the movie American Fiction. Pearl is an aspiring trans woman writer. Her first novel has sunk without a trace so now she is going to try something more commercial: a gay male romance with James Bond action marketed to straight women who love that kind of thing. She's even adopting a pen name as Paul Sisters, s gay man.
For a time it works. She has a publisher, Muzzle And Escutcheon is selling well and "Paul" has a fan following. Still, it's getting harder and harder to maintain her fake identity and she's having to make ever more compromises with her own identity and relationships.
One other caution. Pearl does have to deal with casual transphobia. One sequence of her doing an online chat as Paul with transphobic fans and trying not to let it get to her I foundto be particularly triggering
Good, funny, recommended
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Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2025
