i have been anticipating this book for a while now and it did not disappoint! i loved seeing the many relationship dynamics at play throughout the novel and i loved finch's journey with all my heart. i did leave one star off because i felt that his family problems were a little too unresolved rather than left open-ended which i would have found to be more satisfactory. instead, they were wholly passed over once the final debate had ended even though his family had been watching his speech just as lucy and alice brady had been. i thought of jonah as a wonderful character as well, and adwoa too. overall a great read.

Let me preface this review by stating that I *very* rarely read books that aren't fantasy. I don't have anything against them, but there are only so many hours in a day and I love to read as much fantasy as possible.

However, I saw this book and immediately knew I wanted to read it. As someone whose field is Transitional Justice (what I term the less bigoted political science) I spend a lot of time explaining to people how it is not fun or helpful to debate your own existence (ie queer rights, disability rights, etc). Debating has always been an interesting topic for me as I love debating but find debating human rights to be overwhelmingly toxic and predatory. I love debating what the best super power would be, but hate needing to debate why immigrants deserve rights. This book captures basically all my feelings on the subject.

Our protagonist Finch is a trans male teen in a school where only his best friend and his debate partner are some of the few students that know that he's trans. Finch needs to do well in debate -- particularly nationals-- in the hopes that he will be able to get a substantial university scholarship. Finch learns that the topic will be trans bathroom rights and has to navigate how he wants to handle that on top of discovering that he might be catching feelings for his debate partner Jonah (when he never considered he was into men before).

Peyton Thomas not only deals amazingly with these issues, he also discusses issues of anti-Blackness and xenophobia: Finch is confronted with the knowledge that being trans does not automatically make him a great ally against racism and this is dealt with in such an honest and realistic way.

This book combines the general awkwardness of high school with a myriad of important topics without feeling preachy or depressing-- this is not a book about trans suffering but about trans success and self discovery!

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of Both Sides Now in exchange for an honest review.

OH MY GOD THIS! Peyton Thomas absolutely rocked this. Following trans high schooler Finch who's life is wrapped up in debate after he finds out the nationals motion is about bathroom access for trans students, Both Sides Now is both an incredible character piece (I'm obsessed with how flawed and real everyone is and how Thomas had them all confront their flaws. High schoolers stumbling and messing up is super important to show because it means you can show the readers their own faults they might not be aware of), nerd-cute as hell (what if we bonded over academically arguing then maybe kissed a little after ;) ), and an incredible look into the nuances of being a trans teen (keep in mind I'm cis though so while I can say Thomas brings up some very real feeling things, I obviously can't make any claims as to how 'real' the rep felt).

I also really liked how much Finch & squad felt like real teens? Instead of name-dropping Harry Potter over and over again like a lot of YA books do to say "look! Relatable! Modern!", Both Sides Now name drops a lot of smaller, less famous properties and creators and every time it happened I had to remind myself this wasn't autobiographical because every single namedrop I mentioned was so on point (ALTHOUGH my very niche complaint is the one time it doesn't work is when Finch's friend mentions Lindsey Ellis and Finch has no idea who they're talking about only for Finch to mention Contrapoints a few chapters later as if they're not constantly doing stuff together).

Last little thing, not all queer books need to be educational but I think this would have been a very good opportunity to be a bit more educational. We do see parts of the trans bathroom debate but a lot of it is more moral and emotional based which obviously the type of readers who pick this up will probably agree with, the debate segments would have been a very good opportunity to name a few sources organically within the narrative that readers who partake in similar debates (of the casual kind) could use. Ari mentions that Finch is using an emotional appeal based argument at one point which made me think more specific stats were going to be brought in so I was a tad let down when the times Finch goes "that transphobic argument is incorrect!" were also mainly emotional appeals. (This is probably a moot complaint because obviously those are going to make the book more impactful for readers, I'm just an ex-debate kid who needed to constantly remind myself to bring in real world stats so I was getting anxious for Finch when he didn't).