e-Audio, 08:28:36
Narrated by: Taylor Meskimen
Release Date: August 27, 2024
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: August 29-30, 2024
Stand-alone
Source: PRH Audio App (I received a copy of this e-audio from the publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
Content Warning: Bullying, Body/Body Hair Shaming
For Readers Interested In: Coming of Age, Feminist, Squad Goals, YAA feminist coming-of-age comedy that follows the endless humiliations, unrequited obsessions, and all-consuming friendships of fifteen-year-old Evia Birtwhistle as she leads a body hair positive revolution at her school.
Fifteen-year-old Evia Birtwhistle can’t seem to catch a break. At home, she must deal with her free-spirited mom, and at school she’s the target of ridicule for stating basic truths: like that girls have body hair!
When her BFF Frankie—who has facial hair due to her PCOS—becomes the target of school bullies, Evia decides that enough is enough and creates the ‘Hairy Girls’ Club.’
Leading a feminist movement at school is not easy. Boys often look at Evia like she’s a total weirdo, and the self-proclaimed ‘smoothalicious’ girls start their own campaign in retaliation. As Evia struggles with feeling strong enough to lead, and questions how to be a good friend to Frankie, she falls back on the best thing she has—hope. Her message is simple: We CAN make this world a more accepting, less judgmental place for girls to live in…one hairy leg at a time!
*MY THOUGHTS*
I’ve been looking for more reads for budding activists and I thought this one was great. This book has the feminist activist themes I was looking for! And the way they not only start this initiative but also how she took care of her friends. I really enjoyed this.
So I’m not going to lie, my sole reason for wanting to read this was the PCOS rep. And even though it’s told about from the best friend’s POV, we still get a lot of valuable information about it. Like what her friend was going through, how to navigate having a friend with PCOS, and things to remember when talking with the friend. And I thought she did that so well. If I was a teen who’s friend had just told me they had it, I would hope that someone would react somewhat like her in some ways. She gave her unwavering support and was strong for her even when she wanted to just leave it all behind.
The characters were way weird tho. And they kept popping up? Like the weird girl in the club? She came out of nowhere and then we find out she was a weirdo. And then, her like character had no closure. She admitted that she was weird and then just left after they found out who she was and what she was doing. It was very weird.
There is a bit of romance in this, but that’s not at all what this story’s main focus on. So normally because of this I usually wouldn’t say anything about it, but the dude she ends up liking for real for real is so cute lol He is such a golden retriever! He was very cute for her. All he wanted was to make sure she was comfortable with whatever she had on her body.
I also did like that she included the bullying in there as well. Some kids these days are so evil. And maybe some of those mean girls that are going to read this will understand the different ways that they could hurt someone. Hopefully this won’t only teach people that body hair is normal. Hopefully it will also teach them to hold space for people that are different than them.
This book was so good! It got to my radar so early so I’m glad I finally read it! I hope some of you at the very least pick it up from your library. There’s so much to learn from this story! And the ending?! Definitely got a bit teary. So please, give this one a shot. At the very least you’ll learn more about PCOS.
Overall, I give this
