The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimmons

Young Adult/ Middle Reader. Sports Fiction. Queer Fiction. Representation.

Rating: 3.75/5

Started: 28 July

Finished: 29 July

Summary: 

    All Spencer wants at his new school is to fit in: to go stealth, to not have a repeat of "The Incident" at his old school after he came out as trans, to pass as cis. And between the QSA, his supportive best friend, his accepting parents, and his sweet younger brother, he is content. But between joining his school's soccer team and the cute teammate who might hate him, hiding that he is trans becomes harder and harder. When transphobia arrises in his school's QSA, and his birth certificate with "female" marked on it gets in the way of playing soccer, Spencer must make a choice: to continue to pass, not risking another incident, or to be brave and try to make a difference.

Thoughts: 

    This book was sweet. It was cute. It was heartwarming. It was not world-shattering. The book read more like middle reader than YA, which for me is kind of an issue, and the writing stye was ... bland. I generally end up with a concept of a writing style after finishing a YA book, whether it's a pattern of lovely punctuation quirks or metaphors or the authors voice that comes through the main character. But the only idea of Fitzsimmon's writing was that it was a more YA-leaning plot with the blandness of a middle reader author. Disappointing. The sports-fiction parts of TPP were also pretty bland. I suppose All For The Game has spoiled me with sports writing, and it's possible that I really just don't like soccer, but the wins felt inevitable, and the losses unimportant. The characters were good, if not particularly complex, but the reason I rated this book 3.75 stars instead of just 3 was the relationships and the sweetness of support for queer characters. This book covered homophobia and transphobia, but there were also a lot of moments of uncomplicated acceptance and good choices regarding reactions to queerness, which made me extremely happy. 

    I saw glowing reviews of TPP of bookstagram and decided to try it, and while I don't regret it, I would not say this book is a must-read. However, I would say that it is a good introduction to queer YA since it has excellent representation and doesn't come with the inner ick and yuck and stress books like this sometimes have. 

Words:

    Onus (n) a disagreeable necessity; a burden.