I finished reading @jeanneticallymodified’s Summer Fun a few weeks back and god this book. There’s just something about the way it’s written, it’s tone, it’s energy that just soaked into my soul.
Still thinking about it, but random thoughts:
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More a me thing than a book thing — Summer Fun had all the small little details about “what’s it’s like to think and exist as a trans woman from a certain background” that seem like hallmarks of Topside adjacent authors and — they don’t land on me as hard or as deep as they used to. I still notice them and think “there I am” — but each one isn’t as big a revelation as they used to be. Something something therapy works.
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The book captures the dynamics of emotional abuse so well — often painful and difficult to read but nonetheless beautiful. The scene where B——— is finally forced to make a choice and punches out the mirror was emotionally brutal (complimentary) to get through.
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Lana and B——— meeting was also super difficult for the usual trans reasons. Some of those “what’s it’s like to think and exist as a trans woman from a certain background” details can still get me.
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Also the compare and contrast to Dianne having no choice but to forge alone for an identity while Gala cultivates her isolation from Ronda and the world. Hits a woman born in say — 1975? — in a particular way.
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I’m thinking about the magic a lot — Diane’s Great Work and Gala’s Great Work and how it ties back into this book being, in a way, Thornton’s Great Work.
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As a writer I’m really envious of how there’s something about her writing itself that evokes a feeling. The sort of things I write pull emotion from the situations, plainly (or occasionally cleverly) stated. There’s something about Thornton’s prose that just brings feeling and tension and melancholy to even to the most mundane thing. Part of me wants to re-read and dissect how that spell works, but the other part of me doesn’t want to ruin the magic.