RaveLIBER... is as powerful a read in 2022 as it was in 2013 ... I was not the book’s target audience, but I still felt lucky when I read it for the first time those many years ago, like I’d been let in on a secret. But in reading the reprint of Binnie’s book, I was a bit envious that a work of transmasculine fiction on par with Nevada had not existed for me earlier in my journey—though I would argue that I have found such literary and philosophical shoring-up in later years ... not just a story, though it is a classic story in the broad strokes of its narrative arc; it is a philosophical investigation into what it means to be a woman, trans or not, in late-stage capitalism. Nevada reckons with what it means to decide if the present world is a place worth living in when the teeming potentialities of society, or the self, are yet to be realized. Binnie has written a punk ontological argument riding undercover as a classic, disaffected road-trip tale ... Binnie gorgeously voices both characters’ inner lives ... James’s perspective is perfectly rendered through a fog of stoned shut-down ... Those who want a tidy ending, a perfect denouement, might feel chapped by the lack of obvious conclusion to both characters’ stories. Some might even argue that the novel lacks plot, though I disagree. The open-endedness at the conclusion of Nevada is genius in form, as well as content. Not only does Binnie eschew cis mainstream expectations of a trans story, she also messes in a punk-as-fuck way with conventional expectations of narrative. Rather than leaving the story unresolved, Binnie leaves these characters ongoing ... Rereading this philosophical, hilarious, sharp novel reminded me that no matter what help might be offered, no matter what support might exist, no matter where we live—small, shitty town or booming cultural epicenter— transition is ultimately something one must confront and wade through alone. Many of us found our north star through literature, and Nevada shines brightly on the western horizon for readers, trans and cis alike, who refuse to buy into the status quo.
