GIVE ME!!

Liked this trans girl MG so much. Really memorable and varied secondary cast, no deadnaming (though there is misgendering of another character), and I love that the MC is a cybergenius.

Was very good, and is just overall a really great book. If you like a zany, cool and deep book, this ones for you. Zenobia is going to a new school and makes new friends along the way. Can she keep up her act, or will they figure it out, read to find out!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5 for ZENOBIA JULY by #LisaBunker.〰️〰️#lgbtq🌈 #mglit fans —be sure to get your hands on this awesome #trans coming of age novel. ZENOBIA JULY is a fun mystery full of heart. I just loved seeing Zen grow in confidence and find acceptance. 💙.〰️〰️Zenobia July has moved to Portland, ME to live with her crunchy, lesbian aunts after her conservative father has died (her mom died when she was little). This is also an opportunity to start over as the girl she knows she is. Challenges abound, b...

E ARC from Edleweiss PlusZenobia has moved from Arizona, where she lived with her dysfunctional father after the death of her mother, and is now living in Maine with her Aunt Lucy and her wife Phil. She is starting a new school, and rather nervous about it, especially since she is a trans girl and no one at the new school knows her background. She wants to keep it that way, so is rather quiet. She does manage to make a friend, Arli, who has a lunch table full of friends who all have some trouble...

Video games and hacking are Zenobia's passions, abilities that come in handy when someone defaces her new middle school’s website with racial slurs. Zen and her new friend Arli are determined to find out the culprit but while she is getting closer to her new friend, she's getting more nervous about sharing a her past with them, a past in a different state before she lived with her two Aunties, and before she was allowed to wear dresses. This book celebrates our beautiful differences while also h...

4.65. It is a very good, representative, and underrated book.

Okay, I really feel the need to have two separate reviews for this one.First, the story itself. It was...okay, but there was some pretty big issues with it, mainly with regards to the hacking. I'm not a hacker, but I do have some decent programming knowledge, and while some of the basic details worked--and there are plenty of hackers that are pre-teens--it went way overboard into Zen basically being able to do magic with a keyboard. I may not know much about hacking, but I do know that she would...

Many thanks to Penguin Books for Young Readers for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review How can they not know? It just keeps happening that nobody sees and so I've kept going, but I'm always waiting for the hammer to fall, and I hate having this hammer over my head. I hate it. This is truly one of the best books I have read this year. It’s Wonder but instead of physical disfigurement, gender is the main topic of interest. So, what’s this book about? As mentioned above

This might be the queerest book I’ve ever read, ft. trans girl, trans boy, genderqueer person, vo/ven pronouns, lesbian guardians, and a drag queen?? We stan. This book was such as wholesome, adorable, heartwarming story, without undercutting and sugarcoating a trans experience. While I can’t speak to the experience myself, Zenobia does experience dysphoria and the fear of being outed, and I think to have that tackled, especially in a middle grade novel, is so important. This book also managed t...

TWs: bullying/cyberbullying/harassment, forced outing of a side character, peripheral transphobia and islamophobia, religious fanaticism as a disguise for homophobia, and depictions of dysphoria

This is the most adorable middle-grade book I will read this year.

Personal stuff below.So. Gender. What does it mean to me?Honestly, it's simple:"He" negates me. "He" erases me.I've always known that I'm different. Since I was little I knew that I wasn't a boy. I've never been completely sure that I'm the opposite, but I've always been comfortable -- for the most part -- existing as something in-between.And of course it was painful. I thought it was a phase, at first, just a flight of my imagination. But it persisted. And it hurt, and it flew in the face of ev...

Ahh my heart is so full after finishing this. Zenobia is such a great character — very flawed but always sympathetic/relatable. And she’s so weird! I loved that. Let your queer and trans middle grade characters be weirdos! Also, she’s a cyber genius! The hacking/cyber mystery plot was v exciting and I liked the resolution a lot. I love the found family and the vast array of genders, sexualities and gender expression represented (there’s the main trans girl character, her best friend who’s a gend...

One thing I really like about Lisa Bunker's books is that the LGBT+ characters have actual stories instead of Just Being Gay (or trans, or what have you). In this one, Zenobia fights cybercrime while potentially commiting some of her own. She's trans, it's a major part of the story, but it isn't the only part of the story. She's a well-rounded character, and she's so lovable. One of the things I really don't like about Lisa Bunker's books is the way gender neutral pronouns are handled. Arli uses...

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5. YOU GUYS. Add this to your #TBR STAT if you work in a middle school. It’s phenomenal. I am about to do a terrible job describing it because I just cannot capture its amazingness in words that do it justice. •Zen is starting over in a new state and new school when she moves in with her aunts. She can finally be who she really is and wear what she really wants, including dresses. She falls in with a quirky crew, including Arli, who is trying to figure out ver own gender and has been

One of the best trans books I've read. I also really loved the author's delicate and honest portrayal of Christian Evangelism. I wish the editor had cut out the "interludes". I will be interested to see what those look like in the final print version.

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/ve...

I loved this book, which was totally different from the author's first book but just as powerful in its own regard. The way this author handles gender stuff is just phenomenal, incorporating specific experiences that trans and nonbinary people have that are rarely, if ever, featured in literature of any time. The story has a LOT happening in it all at once, which I imagine would be overwhelming for some readers and exhilarating for others (like it was for me). It had a little bit of a mystery el...