Nevada is a funny book of highs and lows. Maria is a trans woman in a dysfunctional lesbian relationship, living in New York and working in a second-hand book store. She is also a minor online celebrity in the niche corner of the internet that is the trans blogsphere. On the surface it seems that this is a pretty good place to be: out and proud, surrounded by other queers, living the cool NY life. But it turns out Maria is a mess, largely because she is completely disconnected from her feelings and has a tendency to dissociate, developed as a defense mechanism. This is pretty much the plot of the first part of the book. In the second part, Maria has broken up with her girlfriend, stolen her car, and embarked on a road trip. In a shitty town in Nevada, she meets James, a young male-presenting person that she immediately identify as a trans-woman who hasn't figured herself out. She decides that helping James will provide her with some redemptive arch. Of course, a stranger on a car trip cannot help anyone figuring themselves out, and the road trip is bound to go nowhere.

I understand the book was a cultural landmark in US trans literature and made a lot of people feel seen and understood. I also enjoyed reading it, I found it amusing, and well-constructed. It is a very smart-ass kind of book, which both endearing and irritating. I'm struggling to come up with the right adjective, maybe sarcastic, or tongue-in-cheek? Something about the way Maria makes all these statements about punks, gentrification, gender, transphobia, etc., and we are simultaneously supposed to think they are insightful, but also understand that if they're off-the-mark, sanctimonious or shallow that's because of who Maria is as a character.