A review by knkoch
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I was blown away by how beautiful and heartfelt this memoir is. Unfortunately, it has become a cultural flashpoint in the current conservative book-banning backlash. I didn't go into this with any expectation of disapproval, but I was curious to understand the controversy. All that was washed away in the joy of Kobabe's beautiful drawings and deep honesty. Eir gradual journey to understanding eir needs and wants coupled with advocating for and explaining emself amongst family and community was beautifully rendered in thoughtful, at times quite conceptual art. This is one of the frankest explorations of the experience of being assigned female at birth I've ever seen in writing and illustration. Even though this is just one nonbinary person's account, I learned a lot and I hope more stories like this get published going forward, and I'm committed to continue seeking out the ones that already exist. It's sad that such an empathetic and hopeful story spurred such reactionary suppression. It's the kind of story I hope anyone ignorant to gender identity discussions could read and then get, and thus empathize with someone whose life they don't understand. But to do that, one has to be willing to actually read the text and open themselves to other perspectives. Finally reading this, and seeing how many people missed the point of it, makes me a bit less hopeful right now of people's willingness to be open like that. 
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