Author’s latest book shoehorns trans identified male into women’s friendship group.

[mylittlekomododragon]

I have the latest audio book by an author whose books I usually enjoy, but am struggling because a trans identified male has been shoe horned into a women’s friendship group, a menopause group no less, and is welcomed with open arms by simpering handmaidens, apart from one big bad terf who is painted as an out of touch bigot. The character goes on to discuss menopause symptoms, saying they understand, but it felt so jarring. So disappointing, as in a previous book this author had made a comment that made me think she was gender critical, but the pandering to this trans character is staggering. The whole character arc felt contrived, and coming from a 60 year old woman, was almost as disappointing as Margaret Atwood!

She’s actually missing a trick by pandering. I gather that menopause groups are being joined by teenage/early 20s trans men (girls who want to be boys) who have taken testosterone and whose bodies are genuinely going through menopause. They’re scared, they’re betrayed and their bodies are suddenly 30+ years older than they should be. Now that would be a much more interesting, much more dramatic and much more important topic for any writer. I’d certainly buy a book that engaged with genuine issues instead of preaching obedience.

But she has a TW in at least one of the books , who is of course wise , kind, sensitive……

Picturing Nelson in a dress now…

I’ve had a few friends now recommend Mad Honey to me, and every time I just can’t believe they read it with a straight face. This page made me die laughing at the time.

Oh my, that is just so bad! Not only for the ridiculousness of it but for the awful writing.

Oh good grief 😂 What literary offering to the world is this? I’d like to avoid it.

To quote my DFiL, who is a cattle farmer, "You don't need to be a farmer to be able to recognise bullshit.'

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan…

I remember when Mad Honey came out, Jodi P was not happy to be challenged on X about the misinformation and propaganda in the book and went on a massive blocking spree. It’s co-written by a TRA.

By Jodi Picoult?? She used to be an alright writer. What on earth happened?

What is a "lasso of truth", or lack thereof?

The Lasso of Truth is a weapon wielded by DC Comics superhero Wonder Woman, Princess Diana of Themyscira. It forces individuals to speak the truth.

(People I know read superhero comics and watch superhero films. Osmosis happens.)

Thank you, for a moment I was picturing Robert de Niro’s circle of trust in Meet the Fockers…

So, Dr Monica Powers is definitely not inspired by Marci Bowers and the author is definitely not suggesting that DCs best known heroine is embodied by a bloke.

Jodi Picoult? That figures. I avoid her like the plague anyway, so thankfully will be spared Dr Powers.

Ah, I see.

So it is in fact necessary to the plot for Monica Powers NOT to wield a lasso of truth, because it would force him to admit that he is a man.

The Lasso forces the individual caught in its loop to tell the truth.

I presume that the wielder holding the other end could tell any amount of lies if they so wished.

I have had to abandon 2 books so far this year for use of they/them pronouns. It is insufferable and makes the plot really difficult to follow when there are multiple characters in a scene.

It should be added as a trigger warning because it gives me rage.

Ah, but then anyone caught in its loop would have to say that Monica Powers is a man, and I don't think Monica would like that at all.

I read a book a couple of years ago and now I can't remember for the life of me what it was called or who it was by. I was going through a fluffy romance phase and bought a load of chick lit on my Kindle including some by authors I had never read before.

Anyway, this particular book, if I remember correctly, centred around a family where a dad in his 50s or 60s with adult children was engaged to a beautiful woman the same age as his kids. The woman is obviously very young and beautiful but quite distant, and it is implied that she had a deep, dark, secret. At some point we are privy to an exchange between her and her brother during which we learn that she is estranged from their parents. The adult son of the father is struggling with his conflicting feelings towards his future stepmother. On the one hand he mistrusts her, thinks she's only after his father's money, knows she has some sort of terrible secret, and is trying to find out what it is. On the other hand, the more he tries to find out what her secret is, the more he starts to realise he is attracted to/in love with her himself.

At the very end of the book the young woman ends up breaking up with the father and getting together with the son, and we learn - literally in the last chapter - that her deep, dark secret is that she is actually a trans woman. As far as I can remember, the book ends with them about to have sex and the trans woman telling her ex future stepson and new boyfriend that he won't even notice that her vagina isn't a natural one, and that if anything it's better than the real thing.

If it had been a paperback book I would have put it on the compost heap in disgust, but as it was a Kindle book I think I must have settled for permanently deleting it from my purchased books, which is why I can't find it or tell you what it was.

In all fairness, the book was a bit crap even before I got to the end but I was ploughing through because I don't like to leave books unfinished, only for the moral of the story to be that we can't tell whether someone is male or female and that a mangina is better than the real thing.

I try to read books before the Kindle deadline to return for a refund - would be keen to get my money back!

The interesting thing about Strike IIRC is that you can tell exactly when JKR peaked. The trans character in The Silkworm is clearly mentally ill, and connected to the murder victim who was a very weird man with lots of fetishes, but is given a bit of a sympathetic background, and - this is the tell for me - passes so effortlessly that nobody clocks him as male, even at close quarters, until he loses control and speaks in a deep male voice.

You can tell JKR at that point was bending over backwards to be kind, and much good did it do her.

Of course in the next novel Strike meets some trans-abled people, and it does not go well.

I'm rereading the Slough House series at the moment. Mick Herron isn't shy about dropping in bits of political commentary, which I can put up with because he's funny, but he doesn't seem to have gone near this. Perhaps it's only female authors who feel compelled to do so.

I didn't even know you could return books after you've read them.

If you check "my orders" there is a return for refund on books and you can give a reason.

Same. Thanks for sharing that @giuspeace