Book review: What We Left Behind by Robin Talley

Robin Talley is a pretty big name in YA fiction. What We Left Behind is the second of her books I have read (after Lies We Tell Ourselves) and the second slight disappointment. It’s kinda sweet and fun but definitely suffered from a few problems that mean I can’t recommend it to the young people who really need the book this could have been.

Toni and Gretchen have been a solid couple for years at high school, remarkably free from homophobia despite being out lesbians. They had planned to go to Harvard together but Gretchen has a secret: she also got into New York University and intends to go there instead. She grew up in New York City and misses it. She waits to break the news until days before term starts. It doesn’t go down well with Toni but they’ve never fought before, why start now? And NYC isn’t all that far from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

But reality quickly hits. The work is hard, harder than they feared. Toni immediately takes on a bunch of extracurricular responsibilities that take up even more time than schoolwork. They both make new friends who expand their worlds in…interesting ways. And their relationship suffers.

Toni meets some trans and nonbinary students and realises that there might be a reason this group is such a draw. Toni was already thinking about gender a lot – to the degree of not using pronouns for anyone. Which is a weird tic to be honest. But I understand where it’s coming from and that it’s part of Toni’s genderqueer journey. Toni also hasn’t really forgiven Gretchen and keeps cancelling their planned weekend visits.

At NYU Gretchen meets a small-town gay guy, Carroll, who is delighted to have a new lesbian best friend. He is very non-PC and when he hears that Toni is genderqueer, he gets outright transphobic. This is probably the aspect of the novel I disliked most, because Gretchen doesn’t challenge or correct Carroll and remains friends with him. I get that Toni’s gender identity affects Gretchen and that she needs a friend to support her – but Carroll is not the healthy answer.

But the Harvard students aren’t wholly innocent either. They – including Toni – are really judgemental of cis girls who dress femininely – like they can’t be intelligent or feminist or even decent people if they wear high heels and short skirts.

I started out invested in Toni and Gretchen’s relationship and hoping they would figure out how to have a real and honest conversation. By the mid-point their relationship was the least interesting plot thread and I kept reading for the college drama.

I would say this is a thorough exploration of ideas around gender identity and what it might mean to a lesbian if her partner stops identifying as female. But it manages to both feel like a primer on these topics at times and be worryingly tone-deaf on them at others.

So yeah, not one I’d recommend sadly.

Published 2015 by Harlequin.

Source: Gay Pride Shop