Nevada Kindle Edition

An honest portrayal of a trans woman by a trans woman. Imogen Binnie is kind of my hero. She's weird and funny and incredibly smart and this book reflects her personality beautifully. In addition to its refreshingly frank description of a trans woman going through things most people in their twenties and thirties can relate to, this book also offers some biting commentary on the current state of Brooklyn hipster culture. This is an excellent book and no doubt an important one. My only critique is that the manuscript still desperately needs a good proofreader. It really isn't press ready. It needs someone who can preserve Imogen's idiosyncratic prose but fix the many typos, including the one instance in which the tense betrays the story's roots in memoir.

An important trans/queer work of art. Trans art for trans people from Topside Press. Not the pandering, neat, nice, cliched narratives that cis folks want/expect.

If you've gotten this far, you will probably enjoy Nevada. It is not as if you were trying to decide between Nevada and the latest James Patterson book, right? Or, maybe you are, and Nevada will make no sense to you.

Nevada is a novel about a transsexual person, but it is not about transition. In that respect, it is self-consciously alone in its genre. Given that it's the author's first book, and given that the product description makes it sound like trite, un-edited pulp, it is surprisingly well-written in an absolute sense, and was a pleasure to read.

Somehow I find that I am at a loss to say much about this stunning novel as I am still assimilating it and trying to understand it `cause it hit me like a train wreck. Totally. Although I feel I must say something or blow loudly into some heralding trumpet, words fail me as I sit here in awe.

In her stunning novel, as a keen observer of the gender dysphoric experience, the author slices into every conceivable permutation of transgenderism with surgical precision, examining from all angles the nooks and crannies of the minds of her creations. Penned in a very unusual stream of consciousness style that exposes that "little voice" in the minds of her characters for what it is, the novelist examines and dissects every thought and every thought behind every thought, peering ever deeper and deeper into the psyche of those about whom she writes. The desired result happens to be totally great and I cannot say enough good things about this novel.

On the one hand, I think the author totally "nailed it," but with dropped jaw, I cannot say exactly what she nailed, but somehow I know it was important and we are witnessing something great happening here. Totally. Although I am embarrassed to admit that I do not know exactly what it was, I think the power of this book is that it exposes and eviscerates the bi-gendered model of society and is an indictment of the paternalistic medical model of transgenderism. Totally.

That the author's characters happen to be trans, gay and/or drug addled, socially challenged, codependent, lacking in self-esteem, purpose and moral fabric, provides a great backdrop and makes for a very interesting ride to say the least.

This book is an amazing experience and not to be missed. Totally.

Nevada is the story of Maria, a trans woman who breaks up with her girlfriend and goes on a road trip. On the face of it, it's a fairly small story, but the book can't seem to decide whether it's making a grand statement about trans culture as a whole or just telling the story of one deeply flawed individual.

The first half of the book deals with the breakup, and is written mostly in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style from Maria's perspective. In what I assume was an attempt to make the flow more natural to a contemporary character, a lot of the narration involves very modern language quirks, and frequently contains sentences that read like this: "She thought about it for a second and then was like, whatever. Punk rock, you know?" Every conversation is presented as a volley of "She's like...", "And then he's like....". This might read smoothly for younger readers who actually think in such bloggy jargon, but I'm only slightly older than the Maria character and I found it grating.

The first half of the book sees Maria lose her relationship, get fired for messing around at her job, and treat her only real friend shabbily, and all because she can't communicate even the simplest feelings or needs like an adult. All of her inner monologue is focused on what matters to herself, to the point that she knows days in advance just how she's going to end up hurting someone and then does nothing to stop it. She completes the portrait of someone who is maddeningly self-absorbed and thoughtless when she steals her ex-girlfriend's car and drives it across the country in an attempt to "find herself", which really just comes off as a new method of running away from being a grownup.Read more ›

This book had it's moments. There are some really funny observations and reflections on gender that are very accurate, but all-in-all I felt there was too much navel-gazing and the story didn't have much to it. It felt more like reading an autobiography or a blog than a novel. It's still a good read and the first book I've seen that goes into the experience of switching genders in so much detail.