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A review by ironfang
To Own the Libs by Zoe Storm
5.0
Cannot stress how much I picked this up for the title and genuinely hilarious sounding premise, so excellent job with hooking in a reader to the author! Read this over two days, so I hope that says something for how easily I became interested in Lily living through her 'experiment'.
Lily was the peak of "still cis though" and her navigation through 'pretending to be trans for my research paper/to own the libs' while genuinely exploring her own identity felt very grounded. 'So dense [she has her] own gravitational field' is indeed a very accurate description for the POV character, as the Lily Logic responses to things she found gender affirming or dysphoric often were WILD conclusions but also COMPLETELY believable thought processes for someone who's transition was less than straightforward.
Given where Lily starts from as a person, I was pleased to find ultimately find her incredibly likeable! Every milestone she went through was genuinely heartwarming from her perspective and I was glad she found friends and family to connect to, as well as a wonderful support network when dealing with people who were unfortunately awful to her. The postscript ending was especially lovely.
Admittedly this book isn't the most straightforward recommendation due to the unfortunately realistic depictions of transphobia and general queerphobia, which might be difficult for some. However the ebook comes with a handy breakdown of what's depicted in each chapter with a content warning at the back and I wholeheartedly recommend this book if this won't be too much for you as a reader!
Lily was the peak of "still cis though" and her navigation through 'pretending to be trans for my research paper/to own the libs' while genuinely exploring her own identity felt very grounded. 'So dense [she has her] own gravitational field' is indeed a very accurate description for the POV character, as the Lily Logic responses to things she found gender affirming or dysphoric often were WILD conclusions but also COMPLETELY believable thought processes for someone who's transition was less than straightforward.
Given where Lily starts from as a person, I was pleased to find ultimately find her incredibly likeable! Every milestone she went through was genuinely heartwarming from her perspective and I was glad she found friends and family to connect to, as well as a wonderful support network when dealing with people who were unfortunately awful to her. The postscript ending was especially lovely.
Admittedly this book isn't the most straightforward recommendation due to the unfortunately realistic depictions of transphobia and general queerphobia, which might be difficult for some. However the ebook comes with a handy breakdown of what's depicted in each chapter with a content warning at the back and I wholeheartedly recommend this book if this won't be too much for you as a reader!