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maddiemca 's review for:
Zenobia July
by Lisa Bunker
The representation in this one was top-tier. I wasn’t going to pick it up when the summary started with Zenobia’s love of computers, but when it said she was a young trans girl, I was sold. Some trans narratives I’ve read are unintentionally offensive and not interesting, but Zenobia did not disappoint! The representation was so wonderful, including two lesbian women (Zen’s aunts), a trans boy, (Zen’s friend Elijah), and a genderqueer character (Zen’s friend Arli) who uses the pronouns vo/ven/veir. Zen’s aunts’ friend is also a drag queen, and he does Zen’s makeup in a very sweet scene. I do wish we got a little more of Paul in the story, the boy who likes Zen but doesn’t know how to approach her. His “Seeing Zen” chapter struck me as particularly sweet:
“Her nickname is Zen, but her full name is Zenobia July. I found that out. I heard them talking about her in the office, and I remembered. She’s about four feet eleven inches tall, which I know because she was standing next to Walter Bowman in the hall for a minute between classes and they looked like they were the exact same height, and then I stood next to Walter Bowman later in Mr. Ellison’s class by the pencil sharpener and I looked at where his head reached on the poster on the wall, and then I measured with my hand where my head reached on the poster, and it was about two inches higher than Walter Bowman’s head, and I’m five feet one inch tall...
What does she look like? Well, um, she’s... I don’t know... I guess she has dark hair that it looks like she wants to grow out, because it’s pretty short and sometimes she pulls at it like she wishes it reached down to her shoulders. And I guess her clothes are a little weird. I heard someone making fun of her clothes. But who cares about clothes, I mean, right?
Do I think she’s pretty?
I dunno. Stop bugging me, okay?”
All in all, Zenobia July is a sweet coming-of-age novel that speaks true to the middle school experience and just so happens to be about a trans girl.
“Her nickname is Zen, but her full name is Zenobia July. I found that out. I heard them talking about her in the office, and I remembered. She’s about four feet eleven inches tall, which I know because she was standing next to Walter Bowman in the hall for a minute between classes and they looked like they were the exact same height, and then I stood next to Walter Bowman later in Mr. Ellison’s class by the pencil sharpener and I looked at where his head reached on the poster on the wall, and then I measured with my hand where my head reached on the poster, and it was about two inches higher than Walter Bowman’s head, and I’m five feet one inch tall...
What does she look like? Well, um, she’s... I don’t know... I guess she has dark hair that it looks like she wants to grow out, because it’s pretty short and sometimes she pulls at it like she wishes it reached down to her shoulders. And I guess her clothes are a little weird. I heard someone making fun of her clothes. But who cares about clothes, I mean, right?
Do I think she’s pretty?
I dunno. Stop bugging me, okay?”
All in all, Zenobia July is a sweet coming-of-age novel that speaks true to the middle school experience and just so happens to be about a trans girl.