Ciel

Ciel is a gender-nonconforming trans teen about to start their first year of high school. There’s a lot of uncertainty about what the new year will bring, but at least Ciel has their best friend Stephie to rely on. However, things begin to get complicated when Stephie tells Ciel that she doesn’t want anyone at the high school to know that she’s trans. Ciel understands Stephie’s desire but is unsure what it means for the two of them as the semester progresses. Ciel also hasn’t seen their boyfriend Eiríkur in the two months since he moved back to Reykjavík. To top it all off, Ciel’s latest YouTube video has been receiving a lot of attention ever since they posted about the need for gender neutral washrooms at school, and not all the attention has been positive. Ciel has their paper route and the goal of buying a new camera to try and distract, but small and consistent microaggressions make daily life pretty draining.

The overall narrative is one of joy, hope, and resilience, but many negative experiences impact Ciel throughout the story. They are misgendered a number of times—the president of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance makes jokes about pronouns—and there is a struggle to have their preferred name used by teachers and put on school documents. The fact that their best friend Stephie doesn’t want people to know that she is trans also leads to a feeling of alienation for Ciel who now has to pretend they don’t know so that they don’t accidentally out Stephie against her will. Additionally, as Ciel’s YouTube channel picks up steam, the comments underneath become more xenophobic—Ciel’s dad is Brazilian—and critical of Ciel’s appearance. All of it adds up and weighs on Ciel throughout the story. But Ciel is resilient and manages to keep moving forward with the help of their father, Stephie (at times), and their new friend, a trans boy named Liam who Ciel spends more time with as the narrative progresses.

There are a few aspects of the novel, though, that keep it from being exceptional. Though the story is supposed to be a slice of life, the ways in which some characters appear for a brief moment—Stephie’s boyfriend Frank, for instance—and then disappear for the remainder of the novel is slightly jarring. Ciel’s dad is supportive, but he is not a significantly developed character. Eiríkur similarly is a very absent character, only being talked about by Ciel until they break up later in the book. A lack of development means that the impact of the breakup likely won’t resonate with readers as much as it could.

One issue that stood out for me was the language. The novel is translated from French, and perhaps it is a more literal translation or there is a certain cultural difference at play. Or perhaps it is because the author normally works through the medium of comics rather than prose—Labelle is a transgender cartoonist. But in any case, the teens seem to speak in a very formal way for young teens, but at times their sentiments are less mature than I was expecting. All of this leads to a somewhat inconsistent reading experience with various cues causing confusion over the actual age of the characters. This does not change the overall impact of the broader themes and Ciel’s story in general, but it does lead to a somewhat rocky reading experience.

There’s a lot going on in such a short novel, but the reflection of the daily struggles and triumphs of a nonbinary teen is informative and engaging. The slice-of-life style may not appeal to every reader, but it is a book that will enlighten young people about gender and sexuality with a relatively light touch (though there are a few passages early on that feel a bit overly didactic.) Ciel’s experience is both very specific and fairly universal, giving readers a glimpse into the head and heart of a young nonbinary person living their life and trying to make the world just a little bit better along the way.