Kja Reviews "Torn of Flesh" by Danni Jean Black

Good evening. 𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 Tonight I am presenting to the Web my first review. And I wouldn't have it any other way than for it to be on my good friend's debut novella!

If you are down to read a riveting LGBTQIA+ coming of age tale, you can check it out here!

Oh yes, this will be a slightly biased review. (ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ.ﾟ

But I will be honest too. And even in honesty I must give this book of my rising author friend its just desserts.

^{Caveat: I am not nor do ever intend to be a pro. critic. Tis' all for the joy of exploring. I was not paid for this. •ᴗ•}

"Torn of Flesh" by Danni Jean Black

This book is about a girl named Kendyl. Her story begins with her stargazing during her high school graduation.

"I love the stars. I love the beauty of them as they shine. I love the reminder of how small everyone is in comparison to even the smallest spatial body."

More accurately, it begins with her mentally dissociating, desperate to be with the stars than at this ceremony. Her dread is justified when its her turn to pick up her diploma and the professor deadnames her.

This moment is just one of her many harrowing experiences endured as a transgender woman, as a woman, as a person, wanting to just be.

"The point of this book is to tell you a bit about my journey and how the end of high school began the end of me as a person."

Misplaced in body and soul in a world of the apathetic, the ignorant, and the oppressively cruel, this is her testimony of life on the brink of adulthood and in between brushes with caustic reality and her retreats into her battered psyche.

Her Journey Outside and Inside

Following the mortifying night of her graduation, Kendyl recounts her chaotic childhood, when the first signs of things "wrong" with her began and her first years of school while grappling with the confusion coupled with her undiagnosed ADHD and autism.

She endures bullying and breaking points that culminate to her dad dragging her into joining the school's little league. And during a game an traumatic accident occurs.

As pivotal as it is unsettling to read, it does leads Kendyl to realize her true self and jumpstart and shift her teen years to ones of girlhood.

From her thirteenth year and on, in whiplashing ups and downs, great struggles and little victories, coming out to her parents, facing bullies, finding hope and kindness in remarkable friends and allies, to honest awkward strides in therapy, Kendyl brazenly shares it all.

"Nothing, and I mean nothing, could possibly excuse the ideocracy that is hate for someone based on the immutable factors that make them unique when, if cut open, we all bleed the same."

From the story's middle to near its end, Kendyl leads the readers on a descent to the deep core of her psyche, her identity, and her reasonings on the world and herself. It's quite cerebral, tangential, rambling at times, and seemingly detached from the main narrative. I'll admit, it was jarring for me at first. But my good friend is quite intentional here. This is her way of pulling the readers into the fullest presence of her dissociation.

Plot may drift away but in its stead the readers are given her gathered wisdom and truths so stark I could feel their contours over the pages and under my fingertips.

"The reality is often crippling once we stop taking steps forward. We have to keep moving forward."

"In a world that is profiting off of human suffering, there is only one path away from truth, and that is in passionate delusion."

The Truth in Perspective

Throughout this almost epistolary book, she acknowledges the readers directly, and it is clear, though it may lack it within, this story is a dialogue between her and the readers, to pave the way for us to understand the kind of person she is. To paint the picture of the reality that is also shared by at least 2.8 million transgender individuals in just America ¹ and then some. My good friend, a trans nonbinary person her/themself had done extensive research within and throughout the circle of her peers from academia and beyond.

"We look at strangers in the mirror and self-destruct, and yet the world thinks it is just to continue to abuse us as if we don't already do plenty of that all on our own."

"The only explosions or terror we unleash are in the still parts of the day when we find ourselves still in the body of another."

"Make that a fucking quote someday."

As you wish, Kendyl! 𓏲ּ𝄢 I've never heard anything anywhere so on point about the transgender experience as here. 👏

And for those along the rest of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, there are points covered that will still catch one or more of your chords! I myself felt the author had cast ample lights near the corners of my gay heart toward the book's close. 🧡🤍🩷

"Some days, I am estranged from myself when it all gets too hard. My own mind says, 'fuck this,' and removes me from my misery, and I not only stand alone, I stand completely apart."

Kja's Overall Review.

I won't spoil the ending. I will say that this book as a whole is dark, yes, but to me it is also about how in even such loss, confusion, loneliness, and void as people like her and many of us often feel—often feel 24/7—there is still light to be found; there is still wisdom to be found; and there is still love whether from friends, family, or within us to be found.

I think that makes it a gorgeous book.

The one thing I will raise my honesty on is it can be at points choppy in pace, meandering in plot, rambling, and intensely didactic (to a point where it does remind me of Pi from Life of Pi and all his philosophizing and whatnot).

But Kendyl is a fresh-out-of-high-school didactic meandering chaotic young adult. It is the character's narrative, so keep that in mind and hopefully you come to appreciate her chaos and wisdom like I have. The characterization is good; she's fierce and comforting, dark, cosmically, and ironically humorous at times. Her arc and development may be tricky to follow but we do see her and even her parents grow as their lives and worlds change.

Ultimately, bearing all this in mind, it's getting 4/5 stars after my second read, which is .5 higher than from my first time reading it! <3 <3 <3 <3

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