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320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 28, 2014
“You’re different.”
Different. And there it was.
All her life Barrie had been on the receiving end of different.
Even once she’d learned to disguise the Watson gift, she’d still been the daughter of a woman who stood at the window and glared at people on the street from behind a curtain. The goddaughter of the drag-queen who went to parent-teacher conferences dressed in vintage suits and designer shoes.
“Lula was the kind of mother who locked herself in her room and surfed online auctions for designer clothes no one would ever see her wear because she hadn’t left the house in seventeen years. The kind who didn’t let anyone, not even me, see her scars. Who didn’t tell her twin sister she was still alive. Who dropped dead of a heart attack when her best friend—her only friend—told her he was dying of cancer, so she wasn’t there for him the one time he really needed her.”
it was only Barrie’s first name, her real name—Lombard—that served as a reminder of Lula’s bitterness.- A mother almost burned to death, running away to live as a horribly scarred recluse finally dropping dead of a heart attack
Lombard, after San Francisco’s crooked street, and in memory of Wade, Barrie’s crooked father
Mark’s room had always looked like the Moulin Rouge had thrown up, pink and black satin, a throwback to his drag show days when he’d been going to be the next RuPaul, the next José Sarria.The most clichéd dying RuPaul crossdressing wannabe in the whole world. He may be dying, but his character makes me want to laugh because he is so outrageously portrayed.
People had always judged Mark. For being too gay, or not gay enough, or not transgender the way some expected.And I may be one of those characters, because I felt like Mark was a caricature of a crossdressing black guy.
His voice sounded pinched, the way it had the night of her first awards ceremony, when he’d worn Spanx to squeeze into a pink Chanel suit he’d accidentally bought too small on eBay.Mark wears sky-high heels and red lipstick. He loves Lady Gaga. He has a cat named RuPaul. I'm all about diversity in books, and I'm the last person in the world to have a problem with a cross-dressing character, but the thing is that Mark is just too much. He felt like a caricature of a transvestite rather than someone real. The character of Mark felt out of place, outrageously so. I am sure that this book meant well, I am 100% positive that this book did not intend to mock the transvestite community in any way, but for me, Mark felt like a mockery of a person.