Washed Up [With a Kraken] by L.E. Eldridge was on my TBR for a literal year by the time I finally read it. Because who wouldn’t want a monster romance with a nonbinary lead?? (Bigots, I guess?) I thought it was going to be low-key, easy, and provide this nonbinary bb with another romance to recommend to folks when they’re looking for nonbinary romantic leads.  

Ok, so if it weren’t for one very big problem, this likely would’ve been an easy 3 star read for me. It was quick. It was a little bit silly. The world was imaginative if not a tiny bit boring. But it was what I look for in a palate cleanser book between heavier ones.

The problem, though, was big: Eldridge repeatedly misgenders Jorah. There were multiple instances of “he” instead of “they” and in a nonbinary romance that’s absolutely unacceptable to me. If the author had just misspelled any other words, I would’ve honestly overlooked it. And like, yes, I know Jorah isn’t real so doesn’t have any feelings about being misgendered, but instead it felt like a micro-aggression against me, the nonbinary reader. And for that reason, I cannot recommend this book to anybody, and would actually caution nonbinary and trans friends against reading it. Unintentional harm is still harm.