Yahaira's Reviews > Stag Dance

ARC gifted by publisher
rounding up on the strength of The Chaser

Peters has a way of getting you to follow along even when you have no clue what is happening. You just trust her. I don’t mean that her work is overly complicated or obtuse, quite the opposite actually. I would describe her writing as inviting, tender, smart, funny, and bold. Just reading that makes me realize that that’s how I would describe this book overall. What I really mean though is that Peters will drop you in a situation with certain dynamics or a particular vocabulary and trusts you to figure it out or to read between the lines.

You’re either her audience or you learn to be.

In this collection she uses her wit and insight to explore ideas of gender, performance and desire with the use of different genres. What is genre if not a form of dress up? This is risky and exciting.

Infect Your Friends And Loved Ones - a spec fic and revenge fantasy rolled into one. What if everyone was dependent on hormone injections to breed? What if you can’t get over or get rid of that toxic ex? I honestly wanted more from this one. I needed both more character and world development.

The Chaser - a coming of age/ boarding school drama that ended up being the heart of the collection for me. I felt the overly complicated feelings of the characters here and was broken by the end. I went from gd it Robbie, to oh no Robbie 😭. My god do we spiral in this one. How much do you risk for desire? What if you don’t even understand your desires? Can we manipulate others' choices or actions? I would have loved it if the whole book just followed these two characters at different points in their lives.

Stag Dance - maybe a tall tale, maybe a western? A dance where lumberjacks choose the gender they want to attend as. Unlike Infect, I wanted this one to be tightened up. If anything this one highlights Peters’ mastery of how language shapes our understanding of gender and what ‘transition’ can mean. Taking the idea of costumes and play into such a specific setting is so perfectly her.

The Masker - horror in Vegas. A ‘sissy’ must choose between their forced feminization fantasies or the reality of transitioning and all the consequences that come along with it. What do we really want? And are we going to choose what is good for us or accept who we are? Freaky and wild.