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256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2022
Let me start with what I did enjoy: I loved the short story Pioneers, a story about a child that is on the cusp of consciously understanding that they're transgender when they're assigned the part of a matriarch in a school re-enactment of pioneer villagers, causing a downward spiral and refusal to dress the part for it, opting to be a mule (and treated as such by their classmates) instead. I felt this story down to my core and found it deeply resonant. I feel like there's a double meaning to the title of Pioneer, in that this child will go on to forge a new and unknown path for both themselves and those around them after they reach the end of the assignment. Out of every story in this collection, this is the only one I really loved. I was also intrigued by Laramie Time, which portrays visceral longing and grieving of a long term relationship as it's about to end-- but I was still wanting more from it and wish there was more to it. I would love to see it extended into its own novel.
Now for... Everything Else. This collection was overall really uncomfortable to get through, my biggest dislike being multiple stories of sexual abuse and/or content involving minors, and I'm talking age twelve/thirteen. I'm usually okay with most consuming most content, especially if written for adults such as this collection, but my one hard limit in fiction is when adults are maliciously/intentionally doing something to children, and there's a couple of stories here where adults are preying upon pre-teens/teenagers, and the way the fact that this happens in more than one story feels really gross. There's another story that goes graphically into detail of some kids aged twelve/thirteen being sexually involved with each other that also felt so uncomfortable and strange to read for multiple reasons. So much of it felt completely unnecessary to even drive the plot of these.
In addition to that, there's also a descriptive and emotionally rough story of a pet death, a weird borderline-fetishistic story where a character publishes his ex-girlfriend's diary entries misgendering him to confess his crush to a cis man, which somehow makes him a lesbian? and a story about a middle-aged nonbinary person who takes their trans nephew to a trans convention that could had so much potential, but left me wondering what the message Conklin was trying to send even was.
All in all, this wasn't for me. I really, really wanted to like this book and was looking forward to it, but it's hard for me to find much to say about it that isn't negative. Please be advised that this short story collection has a lot of potentially problematic content that is bound to make people uncomfortable. I certainly was.