Endpapers

Endpapers is a book about Dawn, a queer bookbinder struggling with her sense of self against the expectations others have for her. When she discovers a hidden love letter from one teenage girl to another in the 50’s she begins a journey to learn more about their lives and also discovers how to be

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herself.
I really struggled with this book. Mostly because Dawn’s character is in so much pain, at first I found it very difficult to sit with her in her pain and to watch her struggle. I had an easier time as the book went on and Dawn developed her sense of self and comfort in her skin, but it really made me reflect on myself and my own feelings about gende

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I received a free copy of this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, in exchange for an honest review.

This book fights easy categorization. Yes, the primary character is genderqueer, but there's a lot more going on. I love character-driven books, and this one certainly fit that bill.

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There are several intersecting stories, and a fair amount of pain simmering within the lives of the primary characters. Some are more sympathetic than others. (Sometimes you just end up being an asshole.) But the author allows each of them to share their vulnerabilities in ways that feel real as each tries to find a way to a sense of identity. And it's not just a 'coming of age' tale, but a fiercely-told wrestling with questions like "Do I even fit? Am I safe -- and can my friends be safe -- if I let myself become more of the person who/how I might be? Can I love someone who can't love all of the ways I am in the world? And, do I have to chose to share just a single way of 'being' with the world."

But there's also a bit of a mystery story, as Dawn searches to understand the background to her accidental 'find' within the endpapers of a book she's restoring at work.

And enough background into the bookbinding and art scenes to keep the whole feeling fresh and new. (Okay, and I'm a sucker for books about books. Old books, new books, making books, restoring books.)

All in all, we can feel the messiness of the journey. And it's a worthwhile trek.

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Nuanced, verisimilitudinous, both heartbreaking and hopeful story about a young genderqueer artist in New York in the first half of the 2000s. I literally carried this book around with me all day until I finished reading it.

(NB: I read an uncorrected proof given to me by the book's publisher.)

CN:

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all of the hard things around gender and sexuality you might expect in that time and place (and also in the post-WWII era) including but far from limited to homophobia and violence by parents and strangers; illness and hospitalization; historical oppression of Jewish people, including (brief discussions of) the Holocaust

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This book tells what feels to be an honest portrayal of non-binary identity in a time where there wasn’t a real support community, or even a language, to discuss it. Book preservationist and creatively-blocked artist Dawn’s pronouns are never discussed (that wasn’t a conversation in 2003),

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although at one point they note their friend is “the only person I know who calls me both sister and brother”. My read is that the character today would identify as she/they (as the author does). The back cover copy uses she/her language however, so I use that here.

At the end of a remarkably improbable chain of events, Dawn discovers a small piece of someone’s personal history hidden away inside a book she is tasked with restoring on. Taking it as a sign that resonates a little too closely with her personal life, she begins a hunt to track down the story behind a declaration of forbidden love. While Dawn folds the mystery of the hidden letter into her struggles with her gender identity (too feminine for her gay-identifying boyfriend, too masculine for her lesbian ex and the world at large), she simultaneously isolates herself from her friends and resents their growing distance from her. She realizes she is part of the problem, but is unable to step far enough outside herself to really change her behavior, continuing, for example, to make her friends post-assault recovery all about her.

Jennifer Savran Kelly’s writing is natural and engaging - even when Dawn is being frustrating you are still eager to learn how her story develops. I found this debut novel well paced and entertaining and am eager to read more of the author’s work.

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Dawn Levit is a genderqueer artist and bookbinder in post-9/11 New York City. Her work on a damaged book leads to the discovery of an illustration and lesbian love letter hidden under the book’s endpaper. Intrigued, Dawn searches for the author and the story behind the love letter, leading her to

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elderly, dying Gertrude. In her youth, Gertrude and her Sapphic Warriors group tucked stories of joyous gay lives into homophobic pulp novels of mid-20th century New York, to encourage the finders to live their true lives openly and freely.

Parallels between Dawn and Gertrude are clear. They both acknowledge their gender non-conformity and hesitancy to express it. Gertrude’s goal to affirm queer love on the endpaper inserts echoes the goal of Dawn’s collective art project, one that will boost her career, as she and fellow artists create a “book” encouraging the free expression of identity without fear.

The plot moves slowly and unevenly, mirroring Dawn’s confusion about her identity and her art. Dawn’s personal life is jumbled. She is too self-involved to appreciate the people closest to her, who spend a considerable amount of time forgiving her. Her partner Lukas is thinly outlined, like many characters in Endpapers. Lukas vacillates from fawning to uncaring with Dawn. Their professed love may have thrived earlier in their relationship, but by the time we meet them their desires have diverged.

This is a well-intentioned novel with important themes, that perhaps took on too much.

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In this post-9/11 novel, Dawn grapples with a city and a self that feels increasingly fragile and blurred. Dawn is genderqueer, struggling to understand her identity, her relationships, her art, and her world. She realizes that like water, she has been molding herself to whatever container will

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hold her, and that she needs to break that mold. Gertrude, a survivor of WWII and the Lavender Scare, helps her find some clarity. This unique story is wrapped in themes of love, identity, compassion, art, and New York. It is the ‘imagined city’ that will appeal to many readers.

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There’s so much about this book that’s thought provoking and mind enhancing. Gender fluidity, the Lavender Scare, the history of bookbinding, the story of Abraham and Lot, and the politics of street art. Dawn Levit, through the able hands of author Jennifer Savran Kelly, shepherds us through

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all of this and more. Endpapers is piercingly honest, moving, and at the conclusion, hopeful.

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This is a novel set in 2003 about a genderqueer artist/bookbinder who works at the Met and is trying to sort out her art, her relationships, and her life. When she finds an old lesbian pulp novel cover with a love letter on the back, hidden in the endpapers of an old book, she goes on a search for

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its author. Jennifer Savran Kelly is Senior Production Editor, acquiring fiction, at Cornell Press. This is their first novel.

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I received this book as part of the early reviewers program. It has taken its place in the top five books I've received through this program.

No one in this story is perfect. The story isn't perfect with an ending wrapped up bow. It is a story of questioning- Who is Dawn in her own mind? Who is Dawn

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with others- her friends, her boss, her boyfriend, and her parents? How do the competing versions affect her art?

And it works. The author managed to pace and plot it so that each strand comes together (or pulls apart) in a way that is a cohesive story.

But this story is not a feel good, warm and fuzzy story. I think it will leave you thinking about the themes touched upon. And maybe wishing you could attend a particular art opening.

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This was a fantastic reading experience. The main character, Dawn, a genderqueer artist working as a bookbinder at the Met, finds a love letter from the 1950s written in German and hidden in the endpapers of a damaged book. This intriguing story follows their search for the woman who wrote the

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letter while at the same time exploring her search for artistic inspiration and struggles with a complicated romantic relationship. It’s set in 2003 in New York, and the author does a great job capturing the atmosphere of a post-9/11 city, as well as Dawn’s experience learning about queer lives in the past and the importance of self-expression. Such a page turning book that took me totally be surprise. I ate it up.

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This a page turner, character driven, complex book that incorporates two different time periods, 2003 and the 1950's Lavendar Scare.

Dawn Levit, is a young bookbinder and repairer at Metropolition Museum of Art in New York. She is in conflict over her gender isdentity and gnder expression. Her

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relationship with her boyfriend, Lucas is in tourmoil. He is afraid of being out as a gay but wants her to look and act like a man. Dawn feels uncomfortable, she wants to be masculine or feminine depending on how she feels at the moment and does not want to go to the extreme with either.

On top of all that, Dawn is stuck in her job, she has trouble deciding and following through with a project. When she finds a book that is water damaged, in the act of repairing it, she discovered under the endpaper, a cover torn from a 1950 pulp novel of a woman looking in a mirror and seeing a man. Also under the end paper was a love letter written in German from a girl to another girl. Now,she wants to find the author of the letter.

The story is captivating and I never wanted to lay the book down.

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Wow. I was so impressed by how this book just pulled me in from Page 1 and made me want to keep reading and rooting for three flawed but very human characters. What I loved most about this book was that Dawn (and Lukas) were struggling with their gender...but also with their jobs and their families

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and their friends and who they ultimately want to be as people. I so, so appreciated that both characters were allowed to be whole people whose gender is a facet of their identity rather than their whole personality. I've read several books lately where the trans/nonbinary characters are struggling with their identities and all of their problems are solved as soon as they resolve that identity. I loved that Dawn was allowed to make a real breakthrough in who she is at her core without the implication that her life will be sunshine and puppies from here on out. Definitely recommend this one.

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2023. Genderqueer/non-binary main character. Dawn Levitt is a bookbinder at the Met. She’s constantly uncomfortable in her own skin. She feels like her boyfriend only likes the masculine part of her and her job only wants the feminine part and even the queers could only parse her as a butch

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lesbian. She’s bisexual. It takes places in the early oughts. She never gets as far as thinking about pronouns. She doesn’t have all the words for things we have now. She just has a really hard time deciding what to wear. There’s a subplot about an old lesbian/gender-non-conforming person. Dawn basically learns to try to be herself more authentically even though it’s scary and sometimes dangerous. She is finally able to express herself through her art. I experienced her as kind of off-putting. She was so detached from even her boyfriend and her best friends. She’s isolated and prickly. Generally a great read, and good consideration of gender identity.

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3 1/2 stars.
As a queer archivist, I'm so glad this book exists. I loved the connection that blossomed between Dawn and Gertrude, all because of the discovery of a historical document. I think I may be in too tender of a spot currently to have been able to cope with the more heartbreaking parts of

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the story, and the hardships that queer folks often experience.

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(I was given a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.)
Dawn is stuck: suffering from artists' block, unsatisfied in her long-term relationship, and struggling wtih feelings about her identity that even her queer friends seem not to understand. In the midst of this low-grade personal

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crisis, she finds a love letter written on the inside cover of an old lesbian pulp novel and becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to the letter-writer.

Dawn is a likeable (and, for some of us, relatable) protagonist; the book does a good job getting the reader invested in her getting her life together and becoming more comfortable in her skin. Her desperation to uncover a hidden queer history certainly rings true (although, having a passionate interest in queer history myself, I would have enjoyed it even more if what she uncovered had had any connection to real historical events). It's also interesting to see a snapshot of a time in the relatively recent past and realize how immensely the world has changed for LGBTQ people, in some ways.
If the "accessible" description in the marketing copy wasn't enough of a tipoff, this is definitely more in the realm of commercial fiction, rather than literary. The prose is transparent and there aren't a lot of layers here - it's a straightforward story of a character navigating a tricky time in her life. For this reason, it's not a new favorite for me - when I step outside my usual genre fiction box I prefer books that give you a little more to chew on - but it's a solidly enjoyable read, and it's nice to see a nonbinary protagonist.

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A bit disappointing tbh! YA vibes despite being about twentysomethings with nascent careers and clearly trying to transcend its own YA vibes. I don't know if it's the quality of the writing at a sentence level or if it's the plot: many plot threads were left artistically open-ended, but the central

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coincidence of the similarity between the two hate crimes still felt trite.

At least the author managed to keep from falling into the YA pit-trap of "oh hello, I the main character have discovered that I identify as X and that is defined as Y and now I feel Seen", which is (unfortunately) not nothing! A grudging extra 0.75 star for that.

Is it a historical if it takes place in 2003? Probably! Hahahaha I'm old.

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