Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens by Tanya Boteju

Pride reading continues. This time with a fiction.

Kings, Queens, And In-Betweens is an interesting tale because it is more than one thing, it isn't just about a young woman and her dad in the aftermath of her mother taking off, it isn't just about the complications added to a friendship when one of the people in the friendship is going through stuff they don't have the words for yet, it isn't just about the awkwardness and mess that can be meeting someone you like a lot, it isn't just about the drag scene, it isn't just about figuring out how to feel and deal with a body that doesn't quite fit....it is all of this.

Nima lives with her dad and we meet her a year and a half after her mother has left her and her dad without wanting or any idea of where she is and why she left. Nima has a best friend named Charles and meets and bonds big time with drag sensation Deidre. And there is also Gordon who isn't Nima's anything anymore but once was her friend but he is around and hurting and vulgar and lonely and mean and feeling broken. Then there is Jill who was Nima's parents' bestie and is somehow connected to her mom leaving. In the community of drag clubs, performers, and audience, Nima finds herself wanting/needing to be a Drag King. Oh, and Nima likes girls, well one girl in particular, once she meets Winnow that's it, game over, she has fallen hard! But oh the joys of being young, inexperienced, and socially awkward!!! Nima makes a little bit of a muddle of things romantically.

So much happens to Nima at once. I don't really know how to explain it other than to say that there were times when I felt the writing or story line was just too, well too...but really there is so much depth and emotion in Nima's life (story) that what ever it is that I can't put my finger on didn't make it hard at all to love Nima and her world and be pulling for her every step of the way.

(Finished June 6, 2019)