Why Would Someone Do This to Sage?: Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

"No one likes a martyr. You're a self centered ass-hole, but this wasn't your fault.

Everything between the beginning and the ending of this book was complete and total insanity and so freaking problematic. Also, it kinda crushed my soul. Seeing Sage say the phrase "I tried and I failed" killed me like no other. It was hard to deal with the last few chapters of this damn book and I really wanted to put it in the freezer (F.R.I.E.N.D.S style).

I'm going to start off with my rating and go from there. I'm giving this book two ratings actually. One is for the story overall and the other is for what kind of message it's sending.For characters and story I'm giving this book 2.5 stars out of 5. For the message I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I didn't rate this as 2.5 stars because it was a horrible book. The writing was really good and the character development was pretty awesome once you realize that Katcher was writing Logan as an asshole and that's not how he sees everyone. The fact that he had other characters in the book that could grasp the situation and explain in the way pro trans* advocates would, shows that he knows what he was talking about.

I'm rating the book this way because it tore at my soul, I hated Logan, Sage's actions often pissed me off, and I just desperately wanted it to end. Doesn't mean it's not realistic though. I appreciate it, I just did not like it. I'm never going to read it again and I won't stop someone from reading it either. I just really disliked it, but not enough to give it three or more stars.

I talked to a friend who heard him talk at an ALA conference about this book. He wrote it for a 'gotcha' effect. Brian Katcher, a straight author, wrote Almost Perfect with the intent of making it a love story that would draw in straight readers (and hopefully open minded readers) of a story about a boy falling in love with a quirky new girl named Sage and then hit them with BAM! Sage is a boy! The publishers ruined that though, by spoiling the secret of the front cover, which ruined the effect and made this from a love story into a story about a straight boy dealing with love towards a trans* girl.

I really don't want to get bogged down talking about the intricacies of the book. The story is pretty straightforward and honestly everything goes to shit when Sage tells Logan. Since the story is told from Logan's perspective so we get a lot of his angsting, working through intense homophobia, listening to his narcissistic ramblings, and screaming at his ambivalent actions. He's really not a likeable character except during the first three chapters and a few scenes afterwards.

When Sage reveals herself to him, he threatens to punch her, then works through his anger. Then he ostrocizes her, and then is like 'okay, we can be friends' then he gets jealous when he sees her with other guys and has sex with her, and then when his sister sees her penis (she hasn't gone through the full transition) he freaks out and tells her to leave him alone because he doesn't want to be a fag. And then she gets beaten up and he rushed to her aid and freaks out when she admits that she's going to give up being a girl because it's not worth it and he freaks out again saying that she can't give it up, it's who she is! His character development is mind-boggling and kind of intricate but I still hate him, even though he went on this big life change of acceptance he's still douche-y. For the majority of the book he acts like everything is happening to him, like the universe is out to get him and cause him heartache.

Sage herself is an interesting character. She's tough and strong personality wise, but very willing to be pushed around emotionally by douche-y mcdoucherson, AKA; Logan. She really is female, she feels like she was born in the wrong skin and does her best to embody her gender, even after the first guy she's ever liked hates her for her genitals. It's only when she's physically beaten for them that she decides to give up. It's not worth the hatred and pain to even try anymore and she is institutionalized and tells Logan that she's just going to be a man. And considering the fact that she almost killed herself when she wanted to be a woman and her father told her he wished she'd never been born (and only uses masculine pronouns with her) you know that there's a very large chance that she might try to kill herself again. I'm glad that she tells Logan and the reader that she won't change, but that she wouldn't be with Logan or wait for him. I'm also glad that Logan finally pulled his head out of his ass to realize that not everything was about him and that he shouldn't put his happiness on other people.

Sage and Logan are perfect examples of hatred, trans*phobia, and what society can do to people, how it can shape, build, and even destroy the strongest willed of people. That's why this book hurt the most, because it displayed some of the highest forms of pain that can be delivered to a person, just because they decide to go against the norm. That's why I gave the message 5 stars. It's a tough story told from an unconventional point of view. Usually these stories are told from the point of view of characters who are already marginally open minded, so having it told from a stereotypical American jock p.o.v. made that all the more intense and poignant. This is not a happy book, but it's definitely a book filled with a very strong message and deserves the Stonewall award that it won. But I'm never reading it again if I don't have to.