HIM HER ME YOU US: A Transgender Story by Savannah Blue (#transgender #fiction)

I feel bad for not liking HIM HER ME YOU US: A Transgender Story more than I did. There is no doubt that Savannah Blue is a wonderful author. She has a strong grasp of people and personalities, and a flair for dialogue and conflict. Technically, her novel is a well-written story, but my issues with River kept me from enjoying it.

River is a sad, angry, unlikable man, given to confrontation, and prone to rough-edged conversations. I did not like him as a character or as a narrator, and that made this a really hard novel to engage with. He rubbed me wrong in just about every scene, so much so that I had trouble separating River's scorn from Blue's opinions, and I found myself questioning what she meant versus what he said. In addition, for a story that hinges on questions of identity, and which pivots around a relationship, I had trouble caring about either.

On the plus side, Blue managed to do something unique with a story about writing, a trope that I find troublesome at best. Books about authors just seem self-indulgent, but by tying River's story to the story of River, this succeeds where so many others fail. The connections and the parallels are there, and the two stories together make for a stronger book. It is just a shame I could not identify better with River (although I did like the brutal honesty of Eli).

HIM HER ME YOU US was a problematic book for me, but a well-written novel that I hope appeals more to other readers than it did to me.

Lover of words. Poetry glutton. Cynic. Idealist. Art collector. Lip gloss addict. Wife. Mommy. NERD. Madwoman. Music fan. Book whore. Beach bum. Water rat. Wine drinker. Bermudian. Las Vegas resident-wannabe. Hopeless romantic. 

Reviewed by Sally