Brian, I don't seek out authors directly to discuss their books, but because you've come to my friend's blog, I'm going to address you. Vomiting aside (and I agree with steepholm about that), Almost Perfect is a study in Logan's repulsion at Sage's body. Not just when he learns about it, but even during the time period when he considers himself to love her, and even after he has supposedly learned something from his supposed narrative growth arc. I have blogged about this before, and you have read it ( http://diceytillerman.livejournal.com/37181.html ). I'm disappointed that you haven't, in all this time, come to understand that Almost Perfect has some harsh transphobia in it.
It's one thing to create a cis character and use their limited viewpoint. It's a further thing to pound home transphobia so often and so hard that it doesn't even matter whether the character through whom it's filtered is supposedly wrong for thinking it: you're still making readers see and feel it over and over again. The text can be trying to say that it's immoral, but the text also keeps reinscribing it via repetition. It's a further thing to use the old queer trope of beating the [in older books, gay, here, trans] character to a pulp to make a point that transphobia exists (and to shine a spotlight on that level of transphobia, the physical beating level, in order to make Logan's transphobia seem mild or not like transphobia). It's a further thing to have your cis character -- who I can't imagine but that you meant to show him having a growth arc -- never get over his repulsion at Sage's genitals. And it's a further, further thing to have Sage move away to a new town for a new start without narrative mention that the world has other trans people in it and Sage might meet them and Sage's life might get better.
Re: Transfobia in my novel
It's one thing to create a cis character and use their limited viewpoint. It's a further thing to pound home transphobia so often and so hard that it doesn't even matter whether the character through whom it's filtered is supposedly wrong for thinking it: you're still making readers see and feel it over and over again. The text can be trying to say that it's immoral, but the text also keeps reinscribing it via repetition. It's a further thing to use the old queer trope of beating the [in older books, gay, here, trans] character to a pulp to make a point that transphobia exists (and to shine a spotlight on that level of transphobia, the physical beating level, in order to make Logan's transphobia seem mild or not like transphobia). It's a further thing to have your cis character -- who I can't imagine but that you meant to show him having a growth arc -- never get over his repulsion at Sage's genitals. And it's a further, further thing to have Sage move away to a new town for a new start without narrative mention that the world has other trans people in it and Sage might meet them and Sage's life might get better.