Nails Paperback – September 18, 2017

How about, Naked Manicure? Not nude, implying a strip tease, an attempt at titillation, but a completely bare confessional. Nails is a frank examination of the author's search for sexual identity and acceptance, mostly from herself, over the course of a crossdressing vacation in L.A. It's about as fun and entertaining as a battle with self-loathing and societal rejection can be!Nails is a lot of fun, actually and funny. MP Johnson is a veteran of zines and genre fiction and her honest, intimate voice makes this book work as an entertaining story and not just a confessional or plea for a cause.Come in the interest of social justice; stay for the tragic comedy; remember it for the rare humanity.(Also, if you share MP's fingernail fetish, this one's an automatic home run.)

This is an introspective look at gender identity, but it is written in a manner that makes it work for any reader. Because at its core, the book is about identity crisis, something everyone goes through. Even if gender isn't the crux of your struggle with identity, you've got some part of yourself you try to keep tucked away, or that you've revealed to the wrong person, or you're trying to find the right person to reveal that part of yourself to.And it is never as clean or neat or easy as you hope.This book is about searching for the self via inner and outer space, searching for validation, feeling desperate for meaning. It is about bartering parts of the self we know have value to others to find the things we need that so many everyday folks already have: acceptance.If you're one of those everyday folks, this book might make you see how much you take acceptance for granted.The transition into the last section at the end seemed a bit abrupt and left me wondering how the protagonist got from point A to point B, but it kept me going.This is captivating and deserves to be a part of a larger story. I closed the book feeling like this was just the beginning. I want more, and when I say the book left me wanting more, I mean that in a good way.

I haven't known MP Johnson's writing for very long, but her other work slips neatly into the category of Bizarro and all things absurd. Prime examples of her entertainment and pathos can be seen in her novels Dungeons & Drag Queens and Drag Queen Dino Fighters. In both these hilarious, bizarre, but ultimately compassionate novels Johnson tackles issues of gender identity, and the ultimate search for self-respect.In Nails, Johnson presents a semi-fictional (at least I get this impression knowing a little about Johnson herself) slice of reality, and search for self, compacted into 77 pages and a few days of vacation time in LA, where our narrator attempts to cram his secret (feminine/masculine) life with as many searching experiences as his courage will allow--all symbolically linked with manicured nails--before he must go home to the false reality he must preform back in Minnesota.All of this is achieved without Bizarro. The protagonist exists in our world, but is forced to negotiate many. What comes through in Johnson's work, is again, the stark poignancy, the darkly comic humor (which her voice commands so well), the heart shots of emotion laid bare, and the rolling turmoil of an individuals struggle with identity.Johnson captures this pain of this unrest, when she writes, "Not only am I a freak, but I'm a freak with no friends, a freak that nobody cares about. Nobody does care about me, I realize. At least they wouldn't care about me if they knew this me. They care about the me I present, the fake, one hundred percent masculine me. But that's not really me. Nobody knows me. I have no body. I am nobody."I disagree.

I read this on the car ride home from Mammoth to LA. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it is most definitely MPs most personal work to date. Brutally honest, at times comical, and thoroughly sad, Nails is a great book for fans of LFP, trans lit, gender identity confusion, feeling like an outsider, and many more. And if you enjoy MPs work, then Nails is a definite must read!

M.P. Johnson's account of self-acceptance and expression of identity is an unvarnished, intimate narrative of an outsider. We are all outsiders somewhere, and it takes everything we have to be who we really are in that cold place. Acceptance may not be forthcoming, but a simple flash of affinity from a kindred spirit is worth all the discomfort the world has to give. Bravo, M.P.

This is a journey of self-discovery I cannot imagine ever having to take. I've written things far less personal and difficult that I could never imagine sharing with the world. A wonderful book! Certainly one I will pass along and recommend to others.

MP takes a difficult subject to talk about and does wonders with it. The character's feelings come off as genuine. I was hoping for a different ending, but the author stayed true to life which was ok. Worthy purchase. Thanks for writing this MP.

This book covers one weekend in a Trans Woman's journey to self acceptance. It is a raw and descriptive tale in the first person. The amount of detail really puts you in the thought of the protagonist. As with any story, there are characters that remind you that humanity is out there, and characters that are reprehensible. But the world is not beyond reproach. The book is complete, but the story is not. The protagonist must live the story to finish it. If this chapter is 5 stars, the ending will certainly be 8 stars.