Almost Perfect Response 2

Well, I finally finished Almost Perfect and it is so good. I would highly recommend it, particularly if you are looking for a novel that shows the difficulties that transgender people and their loved ones face in our society. Logan was a fascinating character, despite the fact that I occasionally wished I could reach through the pages and strangle him for being an idiot. Throughout the last half of the novel, he faces this complex struggle between what he knows is right and how he wants to be perceived by those around him. He knows that he should simply accept Sage for who she is without question and he absolutely wants to do that but struggles with the fear of how her transgenderism would reflect on him if others were to find out, a weakness (a description which he himself used) which he struggles and fails repeatedly to overcome. Logan aside, we have an array of characters surrounding Sage who are in various degrees of understanding. There is Sage's sister who fully accepts and loves Sage, doing her best, despite being the younger of the two, to protect her (although she admits to Logan that she feels guilty, feeling that her support may be in part out of selfishness because while her parents' disappointment is directed at Sage, she is the golden child). Sage's mother does her best to be supportive or, at the very least, accepts that Sage is a woman, although it is clear that there is some degree of shame still lingering. Sage's father, on the other hand, has not the slightest idea of what acceptance means. He refers to Sage using "he/him/his" pronouns, always calling her his son. When Sage decided to begin living as a woman, he put strict restrictions on her, having her homeschooled and never allowing her to leave the house (it is implied that this was a decision made by both parents, but after reading the entire novel, I suspect that most of these decisions were his alone and his wife was simply too afraid to speak against him). When Sage turned 18, she demanded to spend her senior year at a high school and, knowing that he could not stop her in that respect, Sage's father moved his entire family across the state so that no one they knew would know that Sage was living as a woman. At one point, he admits to Logan that he once told Sage that he would rather she be dead than living as a woman. All that being said, he loves Sage or at least loves the son she once was. He may be cruel and his actions were undoubtedly wrong, but their roots lie in the simple fact that he just wanted his son back, a fact which makes it slightly (but only slightly) more difficult to hate him. And Sage herself is a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, both sure and unsure of herself at the same time. No spoilers allowed here because the book is worth reading to find out, but Sage suffers through some difficult times which cause her to question all that she is. As far as my single story goes, I think that this novel shows the difficulties that people of the LGBTQ+ community and their loved ones may face that are often overlooked. It is not usually so simple as accepting or not accepting, something that I think is best exemplified in Logan. He wants to be accepting but lives in a society which is so often not accepting and it is difficult to ask someone to just forget what the world, and his own loved ones think, to be as accepting as he needs to be for Sage. He fears losing his friends and family and although, in his case at least, that is an irrational fear, it is not one that should be dismissed. How much should we ask someone to give up to be there for someone who may already have lost everything? It is a difficult question. Should we expect someone to lose their own friends, possibly forever, to be a friend to someone who no longer has any friends? Should we expect someone to be shunned by their own family to take the place of a family for someone whose family has already forgotten their existence? I'd like to say that we should all be selfless enough to do that, but that is not the case. I'd like to say that we shouldn't have to worry about that because we should all learn to be accepting, but I doubt that will ever happen. I'm not sure there will ever be an answer, but I do think that we can all do our parts and be as accepting as we can.