Remy Rose reviewed What it looks like by Matthew J. Metzger
Review of 'What It Looks Like' on 'Storygraph'
2 stars
DNF'ed after chapter 9...
I wanted to like this book so bad. The spicy scenes are pretty good! It's not the most well written thing, but I actually could have stuck through that just fine. Unfortunately, there were other way worse problems. First of all, use of the r-slur? Really?? Second, the privilege on this MC (Eli), just wow. He made his boyfriend (Rob) give up smoking weed so he'd be more presentable to his cop dad. He's angry Rob missed dinner by BEING UNJUSTLY ARRESTED. Third, also on that note, this book is such cop apologia! I'm always disappointed to hear shit like "most officers were decent guys" from fellow trans folk. No, they aren't.
This book mostly seems to be about Eli trying to prove to his family that they're wrong about Rob. The thing is, his family thinks Rob is a criminal, and that's because... Rob IS …
DNF'ed after chapter 9...
I wanted to like this book so bad. The spicy scenes are pretty good! It's not the most well written thing, but I actually could have stuck through that just fine. Unfortunately, there were other way worse problems. First of all, use of the r-slur? Really?? Second, the privilege on this MC (Eli), just wow. He made his boyfriend (Rob) give up smoking weed so he'd be more presentable to his cop dad. He's angry Rob missed dinner by BEING UNJUSTLY ARRESTED. Third, also on that note, this book is such cop apologia! I'm always disappointed to hear shit like "most officers were decent guys" from fellow trans folk. No, they aren't.
This book mostly seems to be about Eli trying to prove to his family that they're wrong about Rob. The thing is, his family thinks Rob is a criminal, and that's because... Rob IS a criminal. However, the book barely tries to deconstruct exactly what that means. Fun fact, being a criminal actually does not imply you are a bad person at all? The book does not seem to make that connection. Instead, Eli just keeps trying to change Rob into the perfect law-abiding citizen his parents would prefer. Basically, by the author's telling, it's not that Eli's parents are wrong about Rob because they have fundamentally misunderstood the morality of the system they're living under. No, they're wrong about Rob because he has the potential to be "good" and Eli can fix him.
By the end of chapter 9, Rob has actually more or less explained all of this stuff himself, but Eli rejects all of it. If someone can tell me that Eli realizes he's just completely wrong about everything by the end of the book, I'll consider finishing it.