It was definitely an interesting read and I can say I haven't come across anything like it. The author has a unique style of writing that makes you feel like you are there. During the opening scene I could picture every little detail. Without giving anything away, this book hits on many different genres.

I very rarely give up on a book, but I had to give up on this one. The narrative voice was strangley off-putting, the first chapter constantly misgenders the MC, the plot barely holds together, and the characters seem stiffer than cardboard - some of them literally. Overall, it was a disjointed and confusing mess. None of the characters seem consistent in their personality, actions, or voices. The narrative voice is weirdly English for a novel set in New York City, which carries over into most of the characters - who are conveniently European transplants. Meanwhile the handful of characters whose dialogue is written with an attempt at a NYC accent are horrendous.

The plot (and I use the term loosely) centers around Kit, a trans man whose surgically created penis houses an alien presence. We are first introduced to Kit as a female-bodied prostitute barely surviving in NYC, who admits to his customer (his first ever) that he's a trans man and not interested in having sex. He then robs his customer and goes home, where he decides to extort his inheritance from his wealthy English family in order to get gender-affirming surgery. There is no discussion of who his family his or why he hasn't used this money to help him stay alive. There is also no discussion of how he manages to just find a surgeon and receive phalloplasty without any trouble. After the time skip that glosses over all of this, we are reintroduced to Kit as a trans man using his inheritance to fund his girlfriend's playwriting endeavors. Soon he discovers that his penis is home to an alien intelligence in an obvious Venom ripoff - and also that it can grow ten feet tall. He accepts these things without issue, as does his girlfriend.

The author has chosen NYC in 1980, a setting in which trans people of all genders are almost invisible and rarely accepted into the queer community, let alone wider society, yet there are no mentions of the realities of living as a trans man in this setting. This strange disconnect from the reality of the setting, coupled with erratic characterizations and a disconnected plot, left me unable to finish the book. ( )