Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: Big Man
AUTHOR: Matthew J. Metzger
PUBLISHER: NineStar Press
LENGTH: 210 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2018
BLURB:
Max Farrier wanted to follow in the family footsteps and join the Navy once, but he’s better off focusing on just surviving his last year of school and going to work in Aunt Donna’s shop once it’s over.
After an incident at school puts Max in the hospital, Aunt Donna’s had enough. She signs him up for private lessons at a Muay Thai gym. Boxing—she says—will change everything.
But it’s not boxing that starts to poke holes in Max’s stupor—it’s his sparring partner. Cian is fifty percent mouth, fifty percent attitude, and isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with a bully in the street. Cian takes what he wants, and doesn’t let anyone stand in his way—not even himself.
REVIEW:
I just moved recently and don’t have internet yet, so I’m currently occupying a Peet’s Coffee so as to post this review…which I’m having to write on my Kindle. Which is my way of asking you to be forgiving of the spelling in this. I’ll try to catch the mistakes, but autocorrect can be a real birch sometimes.
My feelings coming out of this book are a bit mixed to be honest. The writing aspect, the storytelling and characterizations, were spot on as always. Metzger has always been, at least in my experience, a very talented storyteller. I’ve yet to pick up a book by him and not be instantly drawn into the tale. The same is true here in Big Man.
However there was also a part of me instinctively pulling back for almost the entire story. For me my weight has always been more of an issue for me, self-image-wise, than being trans has. Probably because I’ve always been fat, and only realized I was trans less than a decade ago. And I was perhaps lucky enough to come into the realization of being trans at a point in my life where I never felt ashamed of it. The same can’t be said of my weight.
I wish I could say that what Max is thinking in regards to how he sees himself — and how he sees other people seeing him — is completely unreal. Except it is all too familiar. And that level of self-loathing is hard to read for me. I empathize a bit too much with it.
And yeah, I must admit that had an author I didn’t know/like written Max like this I would be ranty as fuck about how yet again the only fat characters allowed to exist in stories are the lazy slobs who shovel food into their mouths while complaining about having to walk more than ten feet in any direction. Which I’m not exactly happy about, here, but I at least trusted Metzger enough to not dnf after the first chapter. Which I’m glad about now. Because I ended up mostly liking where he went with it. It wasn’t pleasant to read a majority of the time, but for all my issues with this part of the story, I was glad to have some payoff for it in the end.
I just can’t see myself revisiting this book again, for all that I think it is a decent story — unlike a vast majority of Metzger’s backcatalog which are read at least once or twice a year (with a few exceptions).
On the non-Max front, I do want to add that Cian — the other MC — was kinda awesome. One of my favorite parts of Mtzger’s trans-MCs are how strong the are usually portrayed. They are not without flaws or weaknesses, but they don’t come off feeling like they are begging the world to cover them in cotton, or treat them like little children. It is something I always appreciate.
I sadly cannot completely recommend this story, for all that I ended up liking it. But I don’t want to say to avoid it either. The best I can say is that if you read the first couple chapters you should get a good feel for the tone of the story. And if you can stick it out, I will say that it is worth it.
RATING: 
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