Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: Erik the Pink 
AUTHOR: Matthew J. Metzger
PUBLISHER: JMS Books
LENGTH: 212 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 30, 2018
BLURB:
Erik has wanted to be a father for as long as he can remember — but now that the day is finally here, he’s terrified. Surely a ham-fisted Viking of a man like Erik shouldn’t be allowed to handle things as tiny and delicate as his new baby girl?
But it’s not just his daughter that’s come into Erik’s world. His partner has finally returned too. After nine months of watching Andreas struggle with the mental and physical toll of being a man and being pregnant at the same time, the birth of their daughter is both a beginning and an ending.
Erik is a father for the first time — but not everything that comes next is new.
REVIEW:
Well, look at that. A trans mpreg story. Guess it turns out you can write those and still have a compelling story. Amazing. Can’t believe that Metzger cracked this oh so elusive code that has kept the writers of the hundreds of mpreg stories before it so flummoxed.
(…*sigh* No, don’t worry, I’m not going to be a snarky asshole for the rest of the review. Just thought I would get it out of the way. Also, I am aware that Metzger is not the first one to write a trans mpreg story, but he is certainly the first author of any note that I have come across to do so. If you have names of books or authors who you think also have done a good job with the idea, feel free to leave them in the comments, I’d love to check them out.)
Erik the Pink is for all intents and purposes, a fairly light, and at times ridiculously sweet, story about Erik and his partner Andreas as they live out the first year of their daughter’s life. Erik, who has never really had a family since his mother abandoned him when he was 18 months old, is struggling with the joys and fears of being a new dad. Andreas, more confident in the care and feeding of new-born babies, is however struggling to come back from nine months of pregnancy and the tole that has taken on his body and his mind. While not strictly a story about Andreas being pregnant–the story begins on the day of his daughter’s birth–it does deal with the aftermath and depression that Andreas has to deal with as a result.
Outside the fact that I usually pick up anything this author throws out into the world, I have been keeping an eye out for this story since Metzger mentioned on twitter that it might be a possibility for an upcoming novel. Mostly for one reason: trans mpreg. An inexplicably hard things to find in the book market. (Ok, I have several explanations, but I swore to give up my asshole ways for the rest of the review, so you’ll just have to ponder this one on your own.) And while I would not fully classify this story as mpreg since there is very little story time focused on the actual pregnancy while it happens, it does an excellent job, I feel, of talking about Andreas’ pregnancy in a relatable, and realistic, way. Which I found incredibly refreshing.
See, I’ve never been a huge fan of mpreg. Mostly because I find the whole pregnancy thing rather horrifying in general, and rather boring in reading. There are only so many times I can read 200 pages of what feels like a checklist of pregnancy symptoms before I want to throw myself into a ditch and play dead. There have been, of course, exceptions to this (I read the first two books in Ann-Katrin Byrde’s Mercy Hills Pack series and rather enjoyed them) but on the whole it is a sub-genre that I tend to avoid. But it does come up rather a lot lately in fanfiction fandoms I read from, so I would say I have read enough stories to at least have a good feel for the trope.
It has always perplexed me, though, that very few (and I mean I could probably count them on one hand) ever really bother to consider what it is like to be pregnant and male. They certainly like to go into what it is like to be pregnant, but I’m not sure that many authors ever really consider–or simply don’t want to go into–the ways that being both those things at the same time can really fuck with your head. And maybe it is because I will naturally come at these stories from a trans perspective, and so can’t get away from putting myself into these stories in a way most readers won’t, but it always seems like the clash of physical and mental is severely underplayed. Being trans, having to deal with those two warring sections of myself on a daily basis, has I think made me wish that more authors of mpreg would delve into this aspect of their stories (when it fits the world they have created) and a little sad when I find the male characters dealing with pregnancy feel more like thinly-veiled avatars for the female readership, than a real attempt to dig into what it would be like to have to deal with pregnancy while having the societal, physical, or internal expectations of being male.
Metzger did an excellent job at tackling that problem, though. In a way I relate to as a trans man, but also just as a reader. There is clearly always going to be some part of me that identifies with Andreas simply by fact that we share a queer gender identity, but he is also just very well written. And I found the way that his dysphoria issues–or as he calls it, his dizzy days–are written and referenced in such a way that I think people who don’t have to deal with this on a daily basis can understand as well. It is sometimes hard to put into words what daily life can be like for a trans person, but I really liked the simple yet heartfelt way it is handled here.
And not to be forgotten, Erik is a total sweetie. I was extremely happy with how Erik was written. Not the least because while I didn’t end up hating it, Metzger’s last book (Big Man) was not my favorite depiction of an overweight character ever written. The fact that Erik is allowed to simply exist here as a person, and that his weight is not really a factor at all in this story in any meaningful way, was really fucking nice. His weight was treated like a character trait, not his entire character. And, yes, Andreas and Erik had some really nice chemistry going on between them. I don’t think I personally would care for Andreas constant snark, but Erik clearly adores it and the reader can easily tell. It is the same way with how obvious it is that Andreas adores the way Erik looks, feels, acts, and simply is. It never once felt like either of them settled for the other. They fit in a way that makes no sense on paper (especially the paper most romance novels are written on), but which is simply fact of their lives.
This book is obviously a character-driven story, so if you are looking for something with a lot of plot, you ain’t going to find it here. But it is ridiculously sweet, yet not in a way that smothers reality when it is needed in a scene. I had a lot of fun reading this, and like most of his books, it is clearly going on the reread pile to pick up again.
RATING: 
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