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My Review:Title: The Pants Project
Author: Cat Clarke
Published by: Blackstone Audio
Release Date: March 7, 2017
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Length: 4 hours and 10 minutes
Genres: Middle Grade, LGBT, Contemporary
Source: Chirp
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2021 COYER Spring, Lenoreo's 2021 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM
My rating:
Blurb:"My name is Liv (not Olivia). I'm not technically a girl. I'm transgender. Which is a bit like being a transformer. Only not quite as cool because I probably won't get to save the world one day."
Liv knows he was always meant to be a boy, but with his new school's terrible dress code, he can't even wear pants. Only skirts. Operation Pants Project begins!
The only way for Liv to get what he wants is to go after it himself. But to Liv, this isn't just a mission to change the policy - it's a mission to change his life. And that's a pretty big deal.
4 stars — I…don’t read Middle Grade books. I just don’t have a lot of interest, probably because I cringe at my middle grade self when I think on the past. It’s a rough age, no doubt about that. But I saw this on Chirp, and it had Julia Whelan as a narrator, and I just know I need more gender identity books in my life. And I can only imagine that this is an age where things start to become really really difficult for anyone trying to figure themselves out and assert themselves.
And honestly, that’s just exactly what I got from this book. It wasn’t just Liv struggling with their inner identity, it was also all the age old struggles of middle school and fitting in and bullying and all that stuff. I kind of expected Liv’s gender identity to be more in the forefront, but it was really more just between Liv and us. It just happens that the Pants Project grew from Liv’s struggle.
I LOVED seeing Liv interact with his family — I didn’t expect the two mom’s, and so that was a bit of a surprise. His brother Enzo was also kind of hilarious.
I think my favourite part was the developing friendship with Jacob. What a great friend he turned out to be, with his own struggles (which also surprised me).
While it felt like there were some stereotypical male/female gender likes/dislikes initially, it actually sort of blended out by the end. I really enjoyed Liv’s journey, even as parts of it weren’t what I was expecting.
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