I’m glad to be finishing up July on a high note. I’m feeling a good bit better and getting back to reading productively. I thought I’d do a review today for North of Tomboy by Julie A. Swanson.
I’d like to thank NetGalley for providing me with this arc to read.
Synopsis
Perfect for fans of Kacen Callender, Lin Thompson, and Kyle Lukoff. This middle-grade novel focuses on Jess Jezowski, a girl who feels more boy than girl and doesn’t like the fact that people are unable to see that. Except for her clothing and hair, the fact that she’s mostly a boy should be obvious!
This book is set in 1973, in middle America, before most people had the words nonbinary and transgender. Jess certainly came across as trans-coded to me. The book focuses on her standing up for herself with her mother who tries to make her more feminine. This time, after getting another girly baby doll for Christmas. Jess decides to turn the tables, turning a girly doll into a boy doll
Through this doll, Mickey. Jess can be the boy she always wanted to be, she speaks through him and can get away with things her family normally wouldn’t allow. Jess gets a little addicted to being Mickey and expressing herself through him
Mickey becomes something like an alter ego. He begins to drown out her voice. Being Mickey was fine when it was just her family but as the secret gets out she realizes that it’s not worth the potential embarrassment and must find a way to blend her and Mickey’s personalities. She wants to be able to express the boy side of herself anywhere and not just when she has the doll.
However, as she tries to wean herself from Mickey and integrate their personalities. She finds that her family doesn’t want to forget about them and that she still struggles using her voice without Mickey. What will it take for her to stop being Mickey and take on the world herself?
Review
This book was an interesting look at the historical side of gender presentation. Jess is a girl who feels ‘more boy than girl.’ She believes that if people could only see that she is mostly a boy and not defined by the ‘one thing that supposedly makes her a girl’, they could see the real her.
In acting out her gender questions, she changes a girly doll that her mother tried to foist upon her into a boy doll. This doll becomes a way for Jess to express some of her views that she doesn’t feel comfortable expressing as a girl.
Through the doll, Mickey, she is able to be brash and bold. Talking back when things don’t seem fair and standing up for herself and her family. Jess worries whether she is spending too much time as Mickey when people at her school almost find out about her using the doll to talk.
Through the story, Jess finally finds comfort and expresses her opinions more confidently as herself and not through Mickey. I was surprised that this author wasn’t trans as far as I could tell. The book is very trans-coded. I’d give it four stars just for the historical exploration of dealing with gender and some of the author’s humor.
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