Thank you, NetGalley, for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I always appreciate when books are targeted towards younger audiences, in this case, middle graders, but the quality of writing remains high enough not to talk down to them or be unengaging for older audiences. I also appreciate the trickiness of addressing the subject matter: kids who are simply "tomboys", i.e. girls but a bit more masculine than the usual feminine presentation, and kids who simply do not feel like girls at all but lack the language or concepts to be able to articulate the feeling, much less actually override their parents' views of who they should be and what they should look like.

I wasn't initially a fan of this being set in the seventies but by the end, I'm convinced that this time period as a setting actually works better than a modern day context because we have a family that is semi-isolated from major cities and other people in the community but are still big churchgoers and have a very small school where 300 kids from Kindergarten to High School go together to study. This setting works really well as a means for kids who are living in non-metropolitan areas or are part of religious families in modern day to understand the idea of guilt about disobeying parents, but also being forced to tell little white lies to appease adults in their lives.

I particularly enjoyed the repurposing of yet another doll for Jess, who absolutely does not want any more dolls to play with, as a boy, after changing "his" appearance and giving him a name and voice. "Mickey" flourishes after the most basic social gender affirming care (a haircut and more masculine clothes) and gives Jess a mouthpiece to be funny and convincing enough to advocate for herself with her parents and siblings. Jess using Mickey's affectations and comedic style to express herself more convincingly and advocate for herself was delightful to watch, as was her slowly realising that she needed to take those aspects of herself and channel them through her own voice rather than a doll's.

I also enjoyed (by the end) the way that families are depicted as realistically flawed. Older brothers do not want younger sisters tagging along with them for "boy activities", and Jess wants to make friends with the boys in her class because she relates more to their activities and interests, but is forced to befriend girls because spending too much time with boys at this age results in teasing for the girl about liking the boy. Parents are doing their best to heal from their own trauma growing up and are still deeply flawed, but are learning slowly but surely how to be better. There are no clear-cut villains or heroes, just complex people interacting with each other and growing over the course of this book, and I love that we are modelling how it's okay to advocate for yourself and your loved ones, even within family, when the dynamics are hurtful to you and others.

All in all, aside from one censored "ass" from an adult who is annoyed, this book would be an excellent example for growing minds in middle-school about gender and how someone feels if they are not quite what they are presented to be and how it literally makes them feel isolated, shameful, and uncomfortable to be constantly put in that box.

I'm feeling a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, there were parts of this I really liked. Using a toy like a doll to explore a part of oneself is something I found relatable. Whether it's through a doll (imaginative play), art, writing, or some other creative outlet, many of us have found ways to explore the parts of ourselves we don't have the words for. These things give us space to learn and grow and gain confidence. I also found the dynamic, specifically the roles of the mother and father, to be incredibly realistic to an uncomfortable degree. The children's hidden alliance with their mother against and following their father's attacks, the ways they put up a shield when these outbursts happened, and the way the mother would talk him down later... those who know will find themselves getting tense just reading. I haven't really encountered much accurate representation of this kind of abuse, and it's both validating and thought-provoking.

What I was less sold on is the overall message, the main issue being that I'm not sure what it was. Maybe this was the author's intention: allowing the readers to come to their own conclusions. However, I was waiting for a moment where Jess or the narrative acknowledges that her being a girl wasn't the problem: it was the way girls are treated and the expectations placed upon them. However, that moment never really came, leaving me with the impression that the message was that if you don't like being treated like a girl (aka unfairly), you must not be one. Personally, I find that regressive. I don't actually think the author agrees with that sentiment due to certain choices she makes, so I think it's a lack of clarity in the story that makes it come across that way. With some changes, I think this story could sit well with me, but as it stands currently, I'm just not so sure.