Girls Lost / Jessica Schiefauer, trans. Saskia Vogel / 2011, trans. 2020
I bought this Swedish book for its queer and quizzical premise: three teenage girls and besties discover a plant that magically transforms them into teenage boys; while two of the girls use the plant recreationally for a bit, one of them gets addicted to the experience of masculinity, causing a riff in their relationship. The premise obviously steers into the territory of trans experiences and issues, but the thing is, I cannot find any evidence that the author is in fact LGBTQ+. I opened the book out of curiosity about how the experience of trading genders was managed. I kept reading because the translation is written in absolutely intoxicating, poetic prose. On average, the chapters are about 3-to-4 pages, making for a snappy and rewarding read. Schiefauer is boss at these flash fiction sized chapters.
Like most teenage stories, the logic of this one only works if you assume parents and teachers were somehow severely disconnected and not present in the teenagers’ worlds, yet somehow leading otherwise quite normal lives. The girls first experience the effects of this magical plant during a sleepover, but need to sneak out on subsequent nights to play with the plant. Schiefauer does an excellent job of capturing the exhilaration these girls must have felt, experiencing a man’s strength and lustfulness for the first times. Their social interactions with other young boys contrast immensely with their experiences in a female body: “We encountered boys. Made eye contact for a fraction of a second, then they sort of just looked past us, past our eyes. It was strange. No slick, slippery looks, no desire, no grins, nothing that crept under our skin and sank its teeth in.”
Despite being familiar with the impacts of toxic masculinity, Kim quickly falls in love with its embodiment in Tony, a young, but older man Kim befriends. Tony leads a small group of teens through rebellious activities: drinking booze and smoking, breaking into junkyards to rev up cars. The group follows a strict pecking order based on his discretion, where Kim competes for attention with other young men. Girls Lost ultimately rejects toxic masculinity once Tony crosses a line and Kim responds violently. Time gets really weird during the end of the novel, expanding and contracting, as Kim spends a number of years in hiding.
This is where the biggest critique of Girls Lost comes in: Girls Lost is written in a way that makes it seem like the author was unfamiliar with trans and queer community in ways that would have substantially changed the narrative. For example, after Kim ages, she never considers simply taking testosterone and it’s never even presented as an option. The young girls never find queer community and culture. Despite moments of homoeroticism between Tony and Kim, despite a strange heterosexual encounter between Bella and Kim, Girls Lost largely dodges discussions of LGBTQ+ community and how people felt about queer issues in their community. According to Wikipedia, Sweden is one of the most socially progressive countries in the European Union when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. I’m not sure how that translates to the queer communities lived experience, but this novel—which was a hit in the country—suggests that sexual and gender minority communities might still be woefully misunderstood or spoken over.
As harsh some of my critiques seem, this is one of the most fun books I read all year and I would absolutely love to teach it one day.
I recommend this book for those interested in YA, international literature, translation, and the representation of LGBTQ+ groups.