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A review by citrus_seasalt
Elle Campbell Wins Their Weekend by Ben Kahn
3.5
Genuinely not sure what rating to give this, but I’m settling on 3.5 or a 3.75 stars. Some parts were undoubtedly cringy, but a bit less so than the reviews made me anticipate (thank god). The story was knowingly and unabashedly silly, the characters were made more of gimmicks than well-rounded personalities, and yet, there was still a very earnest discussion about nonbinary representation and figuring out what it’s like to be trans outside of the gender binary. I also appreciated there being a transfemme MC that doesn’t dress completely androgynous!
I have a lot of passionate feelings, but because I have a personal rule against swearing in middle grade reviews, my wording will be comically limited. Sorry.
While I think it’s common knowledge for queer people, particularly youth, to have these long-standing parasocial relationships with queer celebrities because they become lifelines of a sort, I don’t see many fiction books cover that. Yes, this was done in a lighthearted way that doesn’t dissect any of the ways that can go south and, yes, it was very self-indulgent. But Elle’s fanby naïveté, and them placing so much of their gender identity and expression around this fictional character and their actor, to a point where they have a couple thoughts about forging their own definition of their gender (and they’re kinda frustrated abt having to do that?) is just… so damn relatable???!!! I even appreciated the short conversation they had with Nuri! Elle didn’t get every single answer they wanted—that was kind of impossible—but, like, they still got to have support from both Nuri and their stepdad. (Jerome being emotional support was so sweet.) And also, their conversation was quite short and straight to the point, like fan interactions typically are. So while Elle continued to idolize Nuri, it didn’t feel like they crossed any lines, y’know?
Long, unnervingly personal rant aside, I also really enjoyed the representation in this novel. There’s some scumbag teachers in the first quarter, but to be honest, their appearances are minimal and a lot of the story is very full of queer joy. I enjoyed that a lot. (The laser tag plot was hilariously convoluted, but I loved Dawn and Elle’s interactions. They were cute, and totally gave away that the author only wrote comics before this.) I can see people being a little exasperated by Elle’s long gender-related internal monologues, but as another nonbinary person I found them relatable in a kinda soothing way, and also, they seemed to be appropriate for Elle’s age (+ where they were in their personal journey as a little baby queer). Curious to know what the target demographic or what the parents reading it alongside them would think, though.
Not much else to say other than this was a lot of fun to read (also, I laughed a couple times!), and I thought Elle and their mom were very sweet. I know she doesn’t interact with them for the second half of the novel, but the way she incorporated supportiveness of her kid’s identity into her mom rants was very sweet. (I’m not sure how else to word that, lol. Read the beginning and you might understand??)
I have a lot of passionate feelings, but because I have a personal rule against swearing in middle grade reviews, my wording will be comically limited. Sorry.
While I think it’s common knowledge for queer people, particularly youth, to have these long-standing parasocial relationships with queer celebrities because they become lifelines of a sort, I don’t see many fiction books cover that. Yes, this was done in a lighthearted way that doesn’t dissect any of the ways that can go south and, yes, it was very self-indulgent. But Elle’s fanby naïveté, and them placing so much of their gender identity and expression around this fictional character and their actor, to a point where they have a couple thoughts about forging their own definition of their gender (and they’re kinda frustrated abt having to do that?) is just… so damn relatable???!!! I even appreciated the short conversation they had with Nuri! Elle didn’t get every single answer they wanted—that was kind of impossible—but, like, they still got to have support from both Nuri and their stepdad. (Jerome being emotional support was so sweet.) And also, their conversation was quite short and straight to the point, like fan interactions typically are. So while Elle continued to idolize Nuri, it didn’t feel like they crossed any lines, y’know?
Long, unnervingly personal rant aside, I also really enjoyed the representation in this novel. There’s some scumbag teachers in the first quarter, but to be honest, their appearances are minimal and a lot of the story is very full of queer joy. I enjoyed that a lot. (The laser tag plot was hilariously convoluted, but I loved Dawn and Elle’s interactions. They were cute, and totally gave away that the author only wrote comics before this.) I can see people being a little exasperated by Elle’s long gender-related internal monologues, but as another nonbinary person I found them relatable in a kinda soothing way, and also, they seemed to be appropriate for Elle’s age (+ where they were in their personal journey as a little baby queer). Curious to know what the target demographic or what the parents reading it alongside them would think, though.
Not much else to say other than this was a lot of fun to read (also, I laughed a couple times!), and I thought Elle and their mom were very sweet. I know she doesn’t interact with them for the second half of the novel, but the way she incorporated supportiveness of her kid’s identity into her mom rants was very sweet. (I’m not sure how else to word that, lol. Read the beginning and you might understand??)