The premise of the short is a simple one which follows our protagonist Chris as he enters into the world of cosplay. Having an interest in sowing served as his entry and he began to make costumes reflecting his favourite anime characters. From here he makes new friends and enters a whole new world of freedom which is in stark contrast to his conservative christian upbringing which allows him to explore himself in ways he never has before. Then one day Chris begins to go deep into himself and realises that he is beginning to like wearing women’s clothes at conventions, and then also at home. Chris realises he is trans, a girl in a man’s body and finds herself starting a new journey that she didnt expect.
There is an inherent difficulty in reviewing a short story compared to a full novel. A short story only has a short time to get it’s point across and flesh out its characters and in this regard I have to congratulate Reedy who has done well to do all this in a very small number of pages. That said the issue of self identity and coming out as trans is a complicated and very difficult process for some with a large number of problems and pitfalls which can make life very difficult for the individual doing it. This is where the short length doesn’t go in the story’s favour as it leaves us with a very short amount of time to get to know Chris as a boy exploring his love of cosplay before realising she is trans. The revelation where Chris actually comes to realise she is trans is also done almost insultingly quickly as a result of a night of internet searches around the subject. While I do not doubt that there are people who always knew they weren’t in the right skin, for Chris’ character it doesn’t quite ring true and feels like we were rushing to a conclusion too quickly.
Another issue I took with ‘Manifest’ was the very vague nature of the details. The characters have names and ages but that is about it, leaving Chris as the narrator describing anime princess or men in suits but leaving out their names and relying on those titles to be almost their whole description. As a lover of anime I could have done with more detail to help set the scene and give the story as a whole a more solid ground on which to build from. As it is the story is too amorphous dealing mostly in vague set ups with few features making the resultant narrative have an almost dream-like narrative. This is not necessarily a bad thing but this lack of physicality makes it hard for the story to leave a lasting impression, I myself read it and almost forgot about it within a week.
There are some saving graces to Reedy’s story, however, as the author has managed to find the voice of a young trans person who is just opening up to who she really is and exploring it without shame. This was done well and while it was rushed I have to commend the author for being brave enough to even dare to write about a young trans girl when so many wouldn’t be able to enter that character’s mind and understand them.
Looking at the whole of this short story I liked that Reedy wanted to write this kind of story, but I thought that it needed a little more weight to it in order to really devote time and do justice to the themes on offer. Really this could have been so much better had Reedy tried to make it more of a novella or a full blown book since there is so much that couldn’t be done in these few words that really could have been explored. Altogether it was a good attempt but fell short of my expectations.
Rating: 2.5/5
Manifest is available now on Amazon and the iBooks Store. Thanks to NetGalley for providing the book to review.
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