"Felix Ever After," by Kacen Callender

Contemporary LGBTQ+ YA Romance

Book Blurb

From Stonewall and Lambda Award–winning author Kacen Callender comes a revelatory YA novel about a transgender teen grappling with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time.

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.

When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle....

But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.

Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.

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My Review

Okay, folx. This review is going to be an emotional one for me. As someone who identifies in a similar manner to the main character in this book, it hit me with a lot of the feels. It was so relatable and genuine that it left me a bit shell-shocked. Not in a bad way, but in a, "Hollleee heck, I've been seen" kinda way. I wish this book existed when I was younger. I wish it had been around when I was so confused about myself, and what I wanted, or who I thought I was and who I thought I wasn’t. I wish it was there when I fought guilt and confusion and couldn’t wrap my head around who I was. But then, hmm. I guess I’m still kind of in that space, so I'm grateful for its existence now. I still struggle in many of the ways Felix did through the book, so to find myself following a character with such similar mental battles was... yeah. It hit home.

I feel like, in a way, I’ve been waiting for this book my entire life. That might sound mellow-dramatic, but it’s true.

Not only does this story have a beautifully introspective, gritty, real portrayal of queer emotion, inner turmoil, and joy, but there is also a fantastic non-poly love triangle that might very well be the best handled one I’ve seen in… ages. It isn’t there simply as a plot device, and I honestly don’t believe there would be a “Team Edward/Jacob” type divide among most readers. Every moment raw, emotional moment as Felix fights forward can be felt in the very depths of your readerly heart. You understand his decisions. His feelings. The whys and why-nots of the things he chooses to prioritize.

Everything about this book was as close to perfection as it comes. I would highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this. To anyone. To EVERYONE. Heck, I think it should be a required reading in high school English. For those who might identify with Felix, its a balm to the soul. For those who wish to understand, it’s an enlightening gem. And for those who think they do understand but really don’t, it’ll teach some incredible lessons.

Giveaway!!

This book made such an immense impact on me as both a reader and a person in general that I want to do more than simply review, I want to pass on the beauty and brilliance to another reader. So, if you’re interested in winning a free ebook copy of Felix Ever After, like and RT my tweet here. I will use a random number generator to select a winner and post their name here after the giveaway closes.

End date is 07/13/2020 at 11:59 pm EST.

Kacen Callender
They/Them/He/Him

Born and raised in St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, Kacen Callender is the award-winning author of the middle-grade novels Hurricane Child and King and the Dragonflies, the young-adult novels This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story and Felix Ever After, and the adult novel Queen of the Conquered.

Kacen was previously an Associate Editor of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, where they acquired and edited novels including Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles, the New York Times bestseller Internment by Samira Ahmed, and the Stonewall Honor award-winning novel Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake.