Review: Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
Felix Ever After follows 17-year-old Felix, a trans boy who is attending a summer art program at his high school. We are introduced to Felix's family, his father, and his friend group, including his best friend, Ezra. The plot takes off when someone puts up pictures of Felix pretransition, and he becomes dedicated to finding out who did it and enacting revenge.
I listened to most of this book in audio. The narrator is Logan Rozos, and he does an excellent job narrating this book! His voice is so wonderful to listen to, and he emotes the exact amount I want audiobook narrates to. Also, if you speed up books, his voice works very well speed up.
There were many things I really enjoyed about this book, but I do think that I would have loved this book much more if I had read it as a much younger person, which is obviously not a flaw in the book; it is YA fiction, and I am fully 28. A lot of this book has a slightly afterschool special on prejudice and tensions within the queer community vibe. It is a very attentive guide to different dynamics between queer people who occupy different marginalization. I think this is very well done for people learning about queer community, but for people familiar with these ideas, it did occasionally just feel like I was reading Twitter threads on how to reply when people are ignorant. Which is totally fine; I think 'lesson' books are obviously very common in YA and that this is not a bad thing. It just is a thing that some older readers might bump against.
Something that is very much also a me problem is that I tend to not like books that use a lot of pop culture references. It occasionally does work for me, and I do see how it grounds the story in time (especially when it is a book by a trans author full of Harry Potter references) and gives characters tangible connections to the real world they are meant to be inhabiting. But I don't want to lie and say that I didn't bump against the way pop culture references were used in this story.
This story also would have made a bit more sense for me if it had taken place at a boarding school or in college. Obviously, the applying to college storyline would not have fit if the school was set in college, but at the very least, boarding school would have made so much more sense. There are so many adults giving children alcohol in this book. Which adults do, but it felt weird that it wasn't ever remarked upon. Obviously, children do drink alcohol; I am not taking umbrage with that plot point. But if this had at least been at a boarding school, than the amount of time these children were away from their parents would have made so much more sense. So many of these kids lived independently or semi-independently. I just kept thinking, 'why are all these parents so uninvolved with their children's lives.' Some of it is explained in the book, but some of it is very YA hand waving.
Speaking of adults, I did really love the relationship between Felix and his father. It made me cry, which is obviously the best thing a book can do. I thought Callender did an excellent job making this relationship tense and also incredibly loving. Felix is frustrated and hurt by some of his father's actions, and the reader can see that his father is struggling with some aspects of having a trans child, but overall it is clear that he is willing to change and try to be the best parent he can be to Felix. This relationship is so excellently done.
Another aspect I loved about this story was Felix. He is a fantastic main character. He makes mistakes, and bad choices, and is shown to be kind of floundering in his life. But Callender really does an excellent job of having Felix grow and change and develop a clear sense of who he wants to be. I really thought his character arc was very well done.
I did think that the romance needed a bit more page time. I kind of felt like I had a bit of whiplash over what I was meant to feel about certain characters and wanted a bit more time where Felix was aware of his romantic feelings for the character he ends up with at the end of the book. It also ended with a grand gesture which is very hit or miss for me. They did talk after the grand gesture, but I wanted more of that conversation.
I really think this book is important and that it is excellent for teens or people who want to read more contemporary queer and trans literature. It is also just a really great character-focused story.
I gave this book 3 stars.
