Book Review: Acid Jazz Singer (Hunger Hurts Book 1) by Nya Rawlyns [Audiobook]

 
 
Travis, a half-supernatural demon hunter, and RayLee, a vampire, are making a life for themselves in New Jersey under the protection of the local vampire. Travis promised his best friend he'd protect her from her maker, but when a demon and a vampire assassin show up, things get complicated, and that's not even including the changing feelings and relationship between Travis and RayLee.

Book Review: Acid Jazz Singer (Hunger Hurts Book 1) by Nya Rawlyns
Title: Acid Jazz Singer
Author:
Series:
Book Number: Book 1
Pages: 196
My Rating: 1 Star
More Info: Goodreads, Amazon
 

Review:

Hoo boy.

I don’t know how to explain my feelings about this book. I wanted to love it, but I couldn’t get past how problematic it was? I wanted to hate it, but I couldn’t help but like certain things about it?

The short summary is: I felt this book was very problematic in its representation and treatment of trans people.

I bought this audiobook because I saw it was narrated by my favorite narrator and because I vaguely skimmed the description and saw something about shape-shifting and someone who was both male and female and vampires, which sounded just like my kind of book. Even if it wasn’t about shape-shifting genderfluid vampires (that sounds like an amazing book, someone please write that), anything with the supernatural and good LGBT+ rep narrated by Michael Ferraiuolo would have been a win.

If only I had fully read the description or some reviews…

Warning: Some of the things in this review could be upsetting to trans people.

Let me start by telling you what this book is about. The main character is half-human/half-supernatural. He kills demons, and at this point, his whole life revolves around protecting the woman he is falling in love with from her maker who is out to get her. And this woman happens to be a trans woman, turned into a vampire before she could get bottom surgery.

In case that premise isn’t already problematic enough, here’s more:

– The book description refers to RayLee as “the trans” (yes, a noun) or “the trannie,” depending on which version you read, and also calls her “a travesty” because of her body. She was also described as having a “freak show mind and body.”

– Travis said he was “becoming a f*g” at one point, although I’m not sure if that was because he had sex with a trans woman or because he almost had sex with a man earlier. But, at another point, I think he said something about questioning his sexuality because of his feelings for RayLee. It doesn’t change your sexual orientation to be attracted to a trans person. A trans woman is a woman, etc.

– It seemed like Travis thought of Ray and RayLee as separate people. At one point he said something like, “RayLee was jealous; Ray was curious.” Even RayLee herself seemed to act like separate people sometimes. The name and pronouns used were also constantly changing (she/her and he/him, RayLee and Ray). Trans men and women aren’t putting on personas. They don’t have multiple personalities, one for each gender. They don’t have multiple genders, period (unless they’re trans AND genderfluid/bigender/etc.).

What took my anger to a whole other level was that Ray and RayLee were trapped in a body that was neither one nor the other. Ray went from becoming a woman to being suspended between two states of being, susceptible to the emotional swings and testosterone-fueled needs of both sexes. If anything, being vampire had exaggerated that freakish mismatch in his personality.

– Because we never got RayLee’s POV, and because she hardly got any page time at all, this read kinda like a “woe is me, I’m a straight guy in love with a trans woman who has a penis” story. I say “kinda” because, although Travis had a bit of unnecessary confusion over his sexuality, he didn’t actually seem to care that RayLee was trans and didn’t have bottom surgery. At least, not anymore, though maybe he did at one point. His feelings and inner turmoil were confusing. But my point is, everything about RayLee was filtered through Travis’s POV and essentially about how it impacted him. Attraction can be a complex, confusing thing, but “poor straight guy” is not a good look when the story revolves around a trans character dealing with dysphoria and getting no POV page time.

– There was so much focus on the fact that RayLee had a penis, and how that made her not-quite-a-woman. Plenty of trans people don’t get surgery. Even in the past when there was no surgery available, trans people existed. It can certainly cause dysphoria for trans people, but its hurtful to not treat trans characters (and people) as the gender they are just because of their body.

– The author has this book listed under her “M/M Collection” on its Amazon page.

I’m not trying to speak for trans people or police their experiences. (If I have overstepped or said anything hurtful/incorrect, please do correct me.) Gender can be confusing, there are probably trans people who use multiple pronouns, who still use their deadname, etc. I’m not a trans man or woman, but I’ve got my own gender stuff going on, so I get it that gender is not a one-size-fits-all experience. I’m also not trying to police what kinds of stories authors can write. But these are all things that need to be handled with care if they’re going to be in a story, and this wasn’t it.

Even if the fact that this was written in 2011 were an excuse for any of this, this wasn’t published in audio until late 2017. Before recording audio would’ve been the perfect time to update the book. The way I see it, if you can remove the harmful things without it really impacting the story, then that probably means you should. Had this been about a trans woman who was actually treated as a woman by the author, or about a genderfluid/nonbinary/genderqueer character, it could’ve been great.

I had some non-problematic issues too. The book was confusing. I was so lost about so many things—the plot, the politics, the relationships. Plus, it ended on a rather unhappy note with a lot unresolved, and I read that the author isn’t planning to continue the series.

But never let it be said that I’m not honest or fair. The writing was great, and the POV character had a really strong, well-written voice. The audio narration was great. There was some emotion. There was a plot about vampires and demons. But all those things only made it all the more disappointing that the book had the issues it had.

I never tell people not to read a book, but, if you are going to read this, please, PLEASE do so with the understanding that you should only use whatever pronouns and names people ask you to, trans is an adjective (not a noun), trans women are women, trans men are men, and genitals do not determine a person’s gender.

 

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Talk to me!

Have you read Acid Jazz Singer by Nya Rawlyns?
Have you ever been disappointed by a book that could've been good if it weren't so problematic?

 
 
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    1. Kristen Burns

      Thanks 🙂 And yeah, idk. I feel like even an hour of research, reading someone’s blog on their experiences being trans, etc. could’ve avoided so many of these problems.

  1. Roberta R.

    This must have been such a difficult review to write, and you handled it like a champ.

    There’s this thing that rubbed me the wrong way in the quote you provided above…beside the obvious, that is:
    “Ray went from becoming a woman to being suspended between two states of being, susceptible to the emotional swings and testosterone-fueled needs of both sexes.”
    So we’re back to blaming hormones for women’s and men’s behaviour? 🙄

    1. Kristen Burns

      There are many things wrong with that quote, and yep, that’s one of them. There were more small things that bothered me in the book too, but I had to focus on the main ones because my review was already so long. Thanks, I was kinda nervous about posting this, glad to know people think it’s a fair review.

  2. Greg

    Lots of issues here, sounds like. I can imagine this was a tough review to write, maybe, but you handled it well and very fairly, seems to me. And can I just say- on a light note- that “shape-shifting genderfluid vampires (that sounds like an amazing book, someone please write that)”- I mean, right??? 🙂

  3. Olivia Roach

    Oh… oh this sounds like a disaster with how many problematic elements are in it. I think I would struggle to make it through this one and am kind of impressed that you did? I am sorry it was such a disappointment though! I have some books which are problematic but had decent enough stories, but it isn’t enough to save from all the glaring troubles it throws at me, so I usually end up disliking it.

  4. Becky @ A Fool's Ingenuity

    A book that you both wanted to stop reading and keep reading? I know that feeling. You can see all the bad yet you still really want to know what’s going on anyway. I mean, part of this was probably you like the narrator and even though a lot of what they were working with wasn’t great they still managed to hook you into some of the better elements of the story. I mean, hard pass on the terrible trans representation on this one but definitely want to read shapeshifting gender fluid vampires.

    1. Kristen Burns

      That’s a good point about the narrator. I feel like he does improve everything he reads and make me like it more lol. But seriously, why are there no shapeshifting genderfluid vampire books already?