Kiss Number 8

2.5 The art was much better than the story line here, so I bumped my rating an additional star for Ellen's excellent & realistic drawings. I understand Colleen's intent, and even the 2004 setting (though not enough was done to ground that setting, so a reader could easily forget that and get confused) but I don't believe a cis non- #ownvoices author did well here. She put in dialogue about a character volunteering their deadname and the redemptive arcs...weren't. I do appreciate an effort to show religion as problematic but not necessarily the enemy, but overall she tried to do too much here and many storylines weren't respectfully or sensitively done.