Minnie's Fiction Addiction

👀 First impressions:
Stag Dance arrives with a bold promise, and it delivers. Torrey Peters returns with a daring hybrid of a novella and three long stories, each genre-bending and boundary-shifting. From the moment I met Babe Bunyan, a rugged lumberjack in an illegal winter logging camp who astonishes his crew by volunteering to dance as a woman, the novel hooked me with its uncanny mix of frontier grit and hinted identity exploration. This titular “Stag Dance” set a tone that balances visceral tension with unexpected tenderness, and I was eager to discover what the next stories would reveal.

✅ What I Liked:
Peters displays remarkable ambition and versatility. The centerpiece novella pulses with raw emotion: jealousy, desire, performance, and transformation amid biting cold and rustic rituals. Babe’s journey is gripping, with tension that converges in an almost operatic climax. Equally impressive are the surrounding stories, a dystopian hormone apocalypse, a Quaker-school romance, a Las Vegas cross-dresser’s reckoning, that expand the collection’s thematic richness. The writing is sharp and unapologetic, exploring gender fluidity, queer desire, and messy identity without sentimentality. Peters writes with mischief and courage, delving into transgressive and often uncomfortable spaces, yet these darker moments are balanced by compelling emotional stakes and moments of unexpected humor.

❎ What I didn’t Like:
The ambition occasionally overwhelms. The core novella, for all its power, sometimes felt overly prolonged—especially in the middle, where the logging jargon and pacing tested my patience. A few of the shorter pieces felt uneven in impact, with some readers finding the genre leaps jarring. Nevertheless, even the collection’s uneven moments highlight Peters’ bold risk-taking.

📚 Why You Should Read This Book:
This is not just a follow-up to Detransition, Baby—it’s a fearless reimagining of what trans-centered literature can be. If you crave fiction that cuts deep, unsettling expectations while brimming with vitality and invention, Stag Dance is essential. It’s a collection that encourages conversation—about desire, performance, community, and the messy, beautiful process of self-discovery. It also makes a compelling pick for book clubs and literary discussions, especially as it resonates beyond its trans context to touch universal questions of identity.

💭 Final Thoughts:
Torrey Peters proves herself an fearless storyteller. Stag Dance is a thrilling, genre-defying journey that explores gender, transformation, and belonging through unforgettable characters and audacious settings. Yes, it demands more from its readers—through pacing and conceptual scope—but its rewards are plentiful. This is a work that challenges, provokes, and ultimately invites you to linger in its spaces long after the final page.

🛍️ Where to buy
To buy your own copy click HERE

Final Rating ★★★★ – A brave and inventive collection that combines literary daring with emotional depth. A riveting exploration of gender’s many possibilities.