Felix Ever After

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender is a young adult novel that was published in 2020. Callender has been chosen for the National Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Stonewall Book Award, and other honors for their middle grade fiction. Callender's 2020 novel, King and the Dragonflies, won the National Book Award for Children's Literature and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry. Callender, like the eponymous protagonist in Felix Ever After, is queer, trans, and Black; their pronouns are they/them/theirs and he/him/his. The book uses Felix’s first-person, present tense narration to explore issues of love, self-worth, and intersectional identity.

This guide references the Balzer + Bay first paperback edition.

Plot Summary

Felix Love is a 17-year-old who dreams of falling in love for the first time and getting a scholarship to attend Brown University. However, he is riddled with self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness, and fears that his poor, Black, trans identities make him unlovable.

The story starts on the first day of Pride Month in New York City. Felix, his best friend Ezra Patel, and many other students are attending the summer program at their elite art school, St. Catherine’s, to work on their college portfolios. When another student anonymously puts pre-transition pictures of Felix on the gallery wall at St. Cat’s, Felix embarks on a mission to figure out who did this and why. His first guess is Declan Keane, Ezra’s ex-boyfriend who constantly bullies them. To get revenge on Declan, Felix creates a fake persona named Lucky on Instagram, hoping to glean a secret of Declan’s to reveal to the world. After the gallery wall incident, an anonymous Instagram user named grandequeen69 begins sending Felix transphobic messages.

Disguised as Lucky, Felix learns that Declan is not the one trolling him. In the process, they form a connection. They talk about art and express vulnerability, comfortable in their anonymity. Declan starts to fall for Lucky, unaware that Lucky is Felix in disguise. When Lucky asks Declan about his breakup with Ezra, Declan reveals that he always thought Ezra was in love with Felix. After this revelation, Felix and Ezra share a kiss, which causes Felix to freak out and reject Ezra, hurting his feelings.

Meanwhile, Felix questions his identity as a trans guy. The thought of figuring out who he really is and coming out to everyone again leaves him paralyzed. He attends a gender identity discussion group and googles trans terminology until he finds the word demiboy, which makes him feel whole.

Felix also struggles to understand his parents. His mother, Lorraine, who abandoned him and started a new family when Felix was 10 years old, is not in contact with Felix. Her departure is one impetus for his suspicion that no one will ever love him. Over the years, Felix has drafted hundreds of emails to send to his mother; finally, he works up the courage to send one. Felix is grateful for his loving father, but he does not understand why his father still deadnames and misgenders him even after helping him through his transition.

Ezra starts to date Austin, a white boy whom Felix dislikes. As Felix starts to understand himself as a lovable person, he takes action, telling his father about his new identity as a demiboy and confronting him about the constant deadnaming, telling Ezra about the transphobic comments from their mutual acquaintance Marisol, and blocking grandequeen69.

After Felix accidentally posts a selfie on his Lucky account, Declan confronts him. He is mad that Felix deceived him, but they still like one another, and Declan invites Felix to come upstate for a weekend. Felix starts to understand that he is in love with Ezra but has been denying it because it would be such an intense and healthy love. Felix tells Declan that their relationship will not work; Austin and Ezra have broken up, as well.

When Felix learns that Austin is a huge Ariana Grande fan, he realizes that Austin is grandequeen69; Austin is subsequently expelled for his actions. By now, the end-of-summer gallery is quickly approaching. Over the summer, Felix has transitioned from painting other people’s portraits to painting his own, which he plans to use for his Brown portfolio. He also uses the self-portraits to apply for the end-of-summer show.

On the day of the pride parade, Felix goes to profess his love for Ezra, but Ezra is stuck on the other side of a barricade. Felix yells at Ezra from afar, and the crowd cheers them on as Ezra hops over the barricade and runs to Felix. The St. Cat’s teachers unanimously choose Felix’s work for the end-of-summer gallery, and Felix reclaims the wall that once hurt him so badly. Felix is filled with a real, healthy love that he would not have been able to accept at the beginning of the summer. As he applies for colleges, he no longer feels like getting into Brown is the only thing that will prove that he is worthy of love and respect.