Here I am, once again judging a book by its cover. Or, if not judging, at least reading. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I’m not totally down with that expression. There are infinite books out there, and I have to choose which ones to read somehow. Yeah, reading reviews is great, but it can be hard to find reviews of books outside the mainstream. All this to say I read Act Cool by Tobly McSmith purely because the cover appealed to me. I like the art style, it’s got a theatre marquee, and “Tobly” is a cool name. Of course, I read the summary before committing, but that sounded up my alley as well, so read it I did. I enjoyed it as well. Sure, some covers are garbage but when they’re done well—and, believe me, you can tell which ones are done well—they do a pretty good job matching the feel of the novel.

What’s it about?

After August’s transphobic parents react badly to his coming out, he runs away from home to live with his imminently more accepting aunt, who also happens to live nearby a prestigious high school for the performing arts. August is a brilliant actor—he has to be, as he’s been playing a role for his parents his whole life—but acting school comes with its own set of difficulties.

What’d I think?

The first thing I noticed about Act Cool is that it’s clearly written by an LGBTQ+ writer for an LGBTQ+ audience. The fact that it starts with a trigger warning is, I think, great because it is very much a novel about a trans life, including the painful and—yes—triggering bits that don’t necessarily make for super yay happy fun reading. It’s like… you can tell the difference between a gay story that is only gay on the surface level so that it can be appealing (read: hot) to straight viewers, and a gay story that actually engages with the gay experience. It’s not about trauma, although that can be a part of it. It’s not necessarily about fear, but there is definitely a way that queer people experience the world that is different from the way cis straight people do. Act Cool is very clearly a queer story.

Every part of August’s story is tinged by his being trans. Even though his storyline is about learning to be authentically himself instead of relying on a cool persona—something that anyone, regardless of age or sexuality or gender identity, could go through—it is tied intrinsically into his identity. Because for August, authenticity can be dangerous. When you spend your whole life knowing that you’ll be rejected and despised as soon as you show your true self, it’s hard to turn that off even in a new setting. August was rejected and despised the moment he showed his parents his true self. Rejection from strangers is hard enough. Being rejected by the people who are supposed to love you the most? That’s absolutely shattering.

Because of his identity, August has to deal with a host of challenges that a cis person would never have to think about, let alone face. When he delivers a monologue from a military movie, his classmates project an agenda onto the selection. When he chooses his acting roles, he has to consider the implications of his gender and whether or not he’s unintentionally making a Statement. He isn’t allowed to just exist freely because in many cases he is thought of as a trans man first, and as an individual second.

Found family is also a major driving force here. August loves his mother, even if he doesn’t love his stepfather, and it is because of that love that he is willing to pretend to be a girl for as long as he does, but much of his journey is about learning who deserves his loyalty and love and that shared biology does not necessarily a family make. I feel like a lot of media/society tells people that biological family should get a pass for anything and everything, so it’s nice to see a novel that acknowledges that family is a two-way street. It’s great if your biological family supports you (and is supported by you!). August’s aunt is wonderful. For a lot of people, their biological family is their family. But if the people you share blood with don’t love and support you, you shouldn’t have to love and support them. Blood’s a good place to start looking for family, but it certainly isn’t the end all be all.

As a whole, Act Cool is a very satisfying book. I’m not going to lie, though. It took its time to get there. One of the best ways to win me over is to write a good development arc. One of the hardest things about that, though, is that for a character to develop they have to start… undeveloped, let’s say. The trick—and it’s a really hard trick—is to create a character who is compelling and likable but clearly flawed, and then make them change in a way that improves them but doesn’t lose what makes them fun. It’s hard to get that balance right. Make the character too lovable at the start and the reader might not want her to change. Make him too obnoxiously deficient and you’ll lose the reader before he gets his act together. August’s development is good, but McSmith doesn’t quite nail the ‘compelling and likable’ at the beginning.

August is sympathetic by virtue of his situation, but he’s pretty annoying. His obvious affectations are frustrating and extremely unnecessary. He comes across as shallow and materialistic, always pretending to be cool and obsessively checking his Instagram followers. Like, I get that it’s the point that he has to learn to be real (and Maggie helpfully points it out to anyone who can’t independently figure out that he’s got some to learn)… but I wanted to like him more. At times, I was actively turned off by his obnoxious attitude. If I have to hear about the Infamous August Greene one more time…

It didn’t help that he had the instant bestie thing going on for him. Again, I understand it. The New Kid storyline is compelling, but at the same time you want your characters to have community. A friendless loner can’t really be neck-deep in school drama or have love triangles or have anyone to gossip with, and real friendship takes a long time to build. It’s easier just to drop the new kid into an existing friend group and have them all adore him immediately. I find this trope really frustrating, though. I was the new kid a lot and let me tell you something: there are not tight-knit groups of friends who are waiting for a final member to complete them. August’s quick relationship with Juliet I understand because they gravitate towards each other as trans allies going through something the others have no way of understanding. The others, though? Anna in particular? They have no reason to glom so completely and quickly onto August (especially since August is so obnoxiously self-centered at the start). Admittedly I’m touchy about this because I’ve spent my whole life without more than one or two friends outside my immediate family, but it always annoys me when undeserving characters are gifted devoted friends who’d walk through fire for them within seconds of setting foot in a new place. It doesn’t work like that.

Thankfully that all improves once August starts to work on his flaws. The pacing is a little wonky, admittedly, but on the whole August—and the novel—gets stronger and more enjoyable as we go.

Act Cool does a really interesting job of tackling the question of representation in media. August is a trans actor who repeatedly insists that his goal is to be able to play any role, male or female. What he doesn’t want is to be stuck in trans roles, because there are so few of them, and the ones that exist are usually traumatic and depressing. Other characters have different opinions. In the second half of the novel, there’s a storyline about a play being workshopped that stars a cis actor as a trans man, and there’s incredible backlash because the role should be played by a trans actor. The book does a great job, in my opinion, of unpacking the question of onscreen/onstage representation. August—and, by extension McSmith—doesn’t have exactly the same feelings about the question as I do, but Act Cool leaves room for different opinions. It acknowledges that this is a fraught subject, and that what August is comfortable with is not necessarily what his classmates or the readers are comfortable with.

For instance, August plays Rizzo in the school production of Grease. He does a great job, enjoys the role, and even gets a write-up on several large entertainment sites for it. His taking that role made me uncomfortable, though. Personally, I have a hard time applauding a trans man playing the role of a woman. It feels regressive. I don’t see it as a win for diversity. A trans woman playing Rizzo? Absolutely highlight that. But a trans man? That feels a squoosh too close to telling August that he’s a woman. And during the controversy about the cis actor playing the trans role for that workshop? Obviously giving the role to a trans man would be ideal, but personally I found it validating that they cast a cis man in the role. I mean, a big part of the issue with casting cis actors in trans roles is that so often the actors are the wrong gender. Like, it seems like if you look up ‘cis actors playing trans characters’ you get a long list of cis men playing trans women, which plays into the damaging idea that trans women are men playing dress up (and vice versa). It’s still not ideal, but when you have a cis man playing a trans man, it makes it much more clear even to the transphobes that he is a man.

I don’t want this to turn into an essay about representation politics, though. August doesn’t want his life to be about identity politics. He just wants to act, and right now I’m just here to write a simple review of a book that I enjoyed. Suffice it to say that the novel does a good job of opening a conversation about the boundaries of acting, what roles it is or isn’t appropriate for an actor to take, and the limited options that trans actors currently have.

What’s the verdict?Act Cool is far from a perfect book. The pacing is off, it falls victim to the hero-succeeds-way-too-fast trope that’s so prevalent in stories about artists, and it has some shaky writing and characterization at the beginning before it hits its stride. By the end it has transformed into a compelling coming-of-age story about a young boy whose love for acting has both saved his life and trapped him in insincerity. It’s a sweet bildungsroman about found family, art, theatre, and love that I would wholeheartedly recommend to readers looking for more fiction starring trans characters or to those who love stories about theatre nerds.

What’s next?

Looking for more YA about trans guys? I’ve found a lot of good ones recently! Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee is as cute as the name implies, and has a great arc for its leading man. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender likewise follows an artistic man through a time of significant personal development. Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas is a rare fantasy novel with a trans lead, and it is both great trans rep and a very fun ghost story.

On a more depressing note, if you’d be interesting in another story that starts with a queer kid getting rejected by their parents and end up moving in with a more accepting family member before ultimately finding their own community, you should try I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver.

Love the theatre? You’ll love Becky Albertalli, whose novels almost always have a healthy dose of theatre love in them. Leah on the Offbeat and Kate in Waiting are your best bets in this category.

Tobly McSmith has also written Stay Gold.

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