Review: I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup 1 by Kurano

I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup 1 (I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup #1-2)
by Kurano

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Contemporary/ Slice of Life
Age Category: New Adult

Blurb:
“Cocoa” has made three best friends in her monthly meetup group, where girls get together every month to quell their sweet tooths by meeting up at the cutest and trendiest new dessert cafes. Cocoa is in it for the sweets-really!-but she’s also harboring a few secrets: Not only does Cocoa have a crush on another one of the girls in the group, Opera, but she’s actually a guy named Satoshi who’s been cross-dressing in order to attend the all-girl group! During one meetup, things come to a head when Opera discovers that Cocoa is cross-dressing-and to Cocoa’s surprise, Opera confesses that he is too! But Cocoa realizes that his attraction to Opera is more than clothing-deep, and as the two grow closer, they’ll learn more about each other-and their own selves-than they could have ever imagined.

My Review

I received a free copy from the publisher through Netgalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

This one caught my eye when I saw it on Netgalley, it sounded fun and I was trying to read more graphic novels so I requested it. When I started reading it I quickly realized this book wasn’t at all like what I expected, but I really enjoyed it. It’s a fun queer story about gender expression and the various reasons why people cross-dress. It’s very cute and fun to read about these four characters who meet up and eat sweets together.

I have to admit it took me some time to get into this book. It took some time to get used to the plot as it wasn’t what I had expected, but I ended up really liking the plot. And I had the hardest time remembering who was who. And with the black and white artwork their hair colors looked the same and I couldn’t tell them apart at first. This got easier as the story progressed. There are also a few weird transitions or a flashback without it being clear from the start that’s what it was, so there was some sight confusion at times.

I liked reading about these characters and getting to know them more as the story progressed. I liked getting to read about the reasons for cross-dressing and it addresses some interesting topics around gender expression and being yourself. There is a bit of romance as well, actually two possible romances and I liked the set ups for these and am curious to see how they progress. This book combines the first two volumes and it was nice to have so much story to read. I plan to continue this series.

To summarize: This one was quite the surprise. The story was quite different than what I had expected, but I really liked it. It’s a queer story about cross-dressing, gender expression and being yourself. It touches upon some interesting topics, but it’s also a cute and sweet story about four characters eating sweets. I thought that mix of lightheartedness with some deeper undercurrents and topics worked well. There is a bit of romance as well, which I am curious to see how it progresses and I plan to continue this series.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads.