This book reminded me very much of Compound Fracture, by Andrew Joseph White. Both books are horror novels with transgender protagonists. Both books feature the very real horror of transphobic characters looking for the deaths of our protagonists, and in both books the transgender characters manage to fight back - and it's horrific, but satisfying. The bad guys are punished. In both books, there's death and violence, but it's still good to see that the all-too-realistic bullies completely get their comeuppance. Old Wounds is more fantastical and less sophisticated than Compound Fracture - but this one is going for a horror movie vibe and hits that vibe perfectly. And what both books do incredibly well is help the reader feel what it's like to be a transgender teen, only wanting to be yourself, and being faced with hate.

This book features a transgender boy, Max, and a transgender girl, Erin, on a road trip from Ohio to California after Max turns eighteen. Erin has an understanding family who supported her transition, but Max has the opposite, and his mother and stepfather have done everything in their power to stop his transition, doing things like cutting up his binders and posting about him on a Facebook prayer group. But now he's eighteen and taking charge of his own life. Erin is coming for moral support and to be part of the queer community in Berkeley.

But when Max's old clunker car drives over a strip of nails in a small town in Kentucky, the folks helping them are a little bit creepy. They talk about a legendary monster in the town who eats girls who get lost in the woods. Erin and Max try to joke about it when their car is fixed right at sundown. Does a cryptid understand transgender folks? Which one would the monster want to eat, the trans girl or the trans boy?

However, when a spark plug dies a little way down the road in the dark, the question isn't so funny any more. The book cover will tip you off, but the monster is real. And there are thugs in the town who make sure the monster gets fed twice a year, and all they know is the sun won't come up until it does. Whichever one the monster doesn't eat, the thugs will make sure won't be telling anyone about it.

Did I mention that I am decidedly not a fan of horror novels? Or horror movies, which terrify me? So I'm not the intended audience for this book. All the same, I couldn't stop reading because I cared about the characters and all I was learning about their experiences. And just before I finished reading it, in real life I learned about a local teen who's been living with friends after her parents kicked her out - who's turning eighteen this week and has an appointment to see about starting estrogen. So it makes me happy that transgender teens will find a way, despite obstacles. And it was good to see the kids in this book facing horrific obstacles indeed and coming out on top.