When he meets Aiden IRL, and gets more or less blown-off, Pen employs his roommates, the Stoner-Hacker, and the Witch to put a hex on Aiden. He’s a dog-walker, and has a secret celebrity hookup, and when he’s not busy with those, he is obsessing over Aiden Chase, who is also a trans man, and one who appears (per his Gram account) to have achieved absolute physical perfection. Henderson, who is a trans man who lives in New York City in the not-so-far-flung future. “Well when you’re trans you can look back and see how every gut-sensation that told you something was off, too tight, wrong, airless, and incongruent was a beautiful curling script towards the future.” As the trio makes its way in a world that includes pitless avocados and subway cars that change color based on occupants’ collective moods but still casts judgment on anyone not perfectly straight, Pen starts to learn that sometimes a family isn’t just the people who birthed you. The two trace Blithe to a dilapidated motel in California and bring him back to New York, where they try to coax Blithe to stop speaking only in code and awkwardly try to pass on what little trans wisdom they possess. When the hex accidentally bypasses Aiden, sending another young trans man named Blithe to the Shadowlands (the dreaded emotional landscape through which every trans person must journey to achieve true self-actualization), the Rhiz (the quasi-benevolent big brother agency overseeing all trans matters) orders Pen and Aiden to team up and retrieve him. Whosoever beholds the aloe will be pushed into the Shadowlands.
Together, they gain access to Aiden’s social media account and post a picture of Pen’s aloe plant, Alice, tied to a curse: After an IRL encounter with Aiden leaves Pen feeling especially resentful, Pen enlists his roommates, the Witch and the Stoner-Hacker, to put their respective talents to use in hexing Aiden.
When he’s not walking dogs for cash or responding to booty calls from his B-list celebrity hookup, he’s holed up in his dingy Bushwick apartment obsessing over holograms of Aiden Chase, a fellow trans man and influencer documenting his much smoother transition into picture-perfect masculinity on the Gram.
When I read the blurb for this book, I couldn’t resist putting in a request, because it sounded so bizarre and interesting.Īnd so thank you to the author, as well as Soft Skull Press via NetGalley for the review copy!
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