The One True Me and You by Remi K. England

 

The One True Me and You by Remi K. England is a YA romance novel. Kay is a fanfic writer who is attending a convention with their online friends. This is a real treat for them, since they go to a straightlaced private school with conservative parents. They have a list of three things to accomplish over the course of the weekend, though, including to ask someone to use they/them pronouns for the first time, to dress in a way that's more gender-comfortable, and to kiss a girl for the first time. Meanwhile, the same hotel is also hosting the Miss Cosmic Teen USA pageant and Teagan Miller is there to win the scholarship money so that she can go to university and finally come out as gay.  Oh, what's going to happen with these kids?

I just...didn't care for this. That's all. 

She says lesbian in a stage whisper, like it's a swear word and she's in a public place. I close my eyes and start counting, though all I want to do is chant they, they, they for every misgendered she on Kay's behalf. If I let myself get tense now, I'll blow the interview, but panic sinks into my heart and starts to squeeze anyway. If she saw Kay, does that me she saw me with her? (page 108)

I'm going to spend some time dissecting the above paragraph. 

1. The overblown "panic sinks into my heart and starts to squeeze anyway" is not prose I want to read, to be honest. What happens to the person? What physical manifestation happens to them? What do they see, hear? What does panic look like to this person? We'll never know because England just wants to use metaphor, despite the fact that this person, Teagan, is in a pageant where she's literally being judged on her looks. What would the impact of this panic be on the interview? If this were a one-time deal, I might let it pass, but the whole book is written like this.

2. Does anyone else note how Teagan herself misgenders Kay by using "her" as the last word in the paragraph? The whole paragraph was how upset Teagan was about someone else misgendering Kay, but then Teagan does the same thing. It was things like this that made the characters in this book insufferable. Sure, we can all be judgy and our internal thoughts can be unkind, but the hypocrisy of calling someone out for something you are also doing is not lost on me. Using wrong pronouns purposefully is mean, but accidental slipups should be forgiven and if someone hasn't been told, then how should they even know? I don't know. I thought this was...not well-considered.

3. The YA-ness of this whole thing. What if someone saw me living my life and hanging out with my friends? Who cares? I mean, I guess it does matter in high school and it matters in the context of this particular beauty pageant and I remember how fraught everything was when I was that age, but I am in my mid-40s now and I honestly just can't be bothered to get myself hepped up about any of this. 

I am not part of the LGBTQ+ community and don't feel qualified to talk about the representation of the spectrum of identities and how it was written. I will say that there are some thoughtful reviews that suggest it might be a tad bit outdated. Furthermore, the fanfic community was really irate about how outdated it was. *shrug* It didn't bother me, but it's likely I don't know what to look for. 

I will say that I am so happy there's enough LGBTQ+ literature out there that there is bad literature. I actually feel like that's a good sign for the acceptance of media portrayals of people with a variety of backgrounds that some publisher thought this schlock was good enough to publish. Not every book with themes about gay or trans youth has to be high literature and that's the most optimistic thing I can say about this book.

2/5 stars