Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: Bump 
AUTHOR: Matthew J. Metzger
PUBLISHER: NineStar Press
LENGTH: 255 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 5, 2018
BLURB:
David’s pregnant.
He’s always wanted to have children, and being a stepfather for the past two years has been a great adventure. There’d even been a plan to start looking into adoption and turn their family of three into four.
But now there’s a bump, and David doesn’t know what to do. He’s spent years escaping the grip of his own body and burying the past—but there’s no way he can hide from his history if he lets the bump get any bigger. It’s not just his baby; it’s also his breakdown.
He doesn’t know if he can do this.
REVIEW:
I feel kinda bad that it took me over a month to get this read and reviewed, but I got about a third of the way thru this book (to right about the part where the pregnancy started to really kick in) and realized that it was starting to mess with my head in a very not nice way. I’m not a huge fan of stories that deal overly much with the symptoms of being pregnant, but that is usually just me being squicked out. I was totally unprepared for my head to go…”well here’s a totally new thing for your mind to go crazy over. Congratulations!” So, that was fun.
This is all my way of saying sorry for the month-long lag in review time, as well as setting up some of the reasons for my overall reaction to this book.
The third story that author Matthew J. Metzger has used to show the many trials and rewards of transmen having children was a bit of a hard one for me. While Married Ones covered the lead up to his trans character getting pregnant, and Erik the Pink had its main trans character dealing with the aftermath and first year of the child’s life, in bump we go along with David as the pregnancy is in full affect. In all its messy, traumatic, and wonderful flavors. Along with David we get to meet Ryan, David’s partner, and Ava, Ryan’s daughter and David’s quasi-step-kid. There are more secondary characters and little subplots that add depth and meaning to the story, but mostly this is the story of how David deals with being pregnant–both in regards to his body and, maybe more important, in regards to how he deals with it in his head.
And despite the fact that the story did a bit more digging into my head than I wanted it to, I must admit that this was a very good story. The writing was very much on par with what Metzger has shown before, and I lost myself very easily into this story. A bit too much at times…but I don’t really hold that against the book. I connected so well with David, with his doubts and his worries, that even if I would absolutely never ever ever want to find myself in this position, I could easily see myself echoing his thoughts.
While the pregnancy on the whole was not an experience I particularly enjoyed reading about, for various reasons, I can’t say it was badly written. In fact, it was the exact opposite. But I ended up finding the parts much more interesting than the whole, as it were. David’s reactions to going thru the pregnancy were a bit traumatic, but I found them to be incredibly realistic and relatable. The interactions between David and Ryan (who was fucking adorable) were some of favorite parts of the story, though. I could get why they were together. They balanced each other so well in this story. From the beginning where they find out about the pregnancy, to how the whole abortion topic was handled (and, like, all the kudos for writing this section of the story without me once wanting to throw my kindle off a cliff), to all the shit they have to handle while David deals with being pregnant and Ryan deals with his injuries (and his whole family of asshats)…it all came together to build this into something livable. If only in the reader’s mind.
I don’t know what else to say. At this point whenever I review one of Metzger’s books I feel like I am running a broken record. He is extremely talented and his stories are always so wonderful to read. Even the ones that get me all twisted up. Because he just has this way to pulling me into the book in such an effortless fashion. It is something that really impresses me because I know how much effort has to actually go into creating that feeling. But that aside, this story was also just a very well-balanced story with relatable characters that worked perfectly together to create a world that I had zero problem buying. And because of which, I have no qualms about recommending it to others. Like usual.
Let’s be honest, at this point it is blatantly obvious I am a huge Metzger fanboy. Which I will start to feel bad about right around the time the stories stop being good. So… give it a decade or two? No one can be this good forever, right?
RATING: 
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