Review of One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller

The perfect trans YA novel does not exi—

OK, it might be a stretch to call One of the Boys perfect. For one thing, there can be no One True Trans YA Novel because there is no One True Trans Experience, of course. What we need is a plethora of diverse experiences. But I have to say, considering I never played any sports in high school and know nothing about football and transitioned at thirty, somehow Victoria Zeller’s story of a trans girl in high school playing football hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Levine Querido for the eARC.

Grace Woodhouse has come out as trans over the summer before her senior year of high school. She thought that meant leaving football behind forever—but she was wrong. When her former teammates inveigle her into rejoining the team, Grace must discover if there is still room for her in this hypermasculine sport. At the same time, she’s navigating this whole “being a girl” thing while also processing a breakup and, oh yeah, she might be getting scouted for a college team? But no pressure.

Zeller’s writing just hits. Her style has a satisfying sufficiency to it, neither overly descriptive nor too sparse. And every so often, she says something that really resonated with me:

If things had gone differently—very differently, the way I wish they had in retrospect—I might have been teammates with Riley.

Chills down my spine as I read those words, which capture the complex emotions a lot of trans people feel no matter what age they transition. Living as your authentic self is its own kind of joy, and I am so immensely happy to have figured out who I am—yet that happiness will always be accompanied by the bittersweet wistfulness of wondering what I could have had if I had realized all of this sooner.

Now, I don’t know if Zeller’s writing will have the same power for cis readers. I can only speak to my experience of this book as a trans woman, of course. I hope it does. I hope cis people read this book and see our struggles, like when Grace’s ex dead names her accidentally in a conversation:

“It’s okay,” I said, even though I felt like I’d been punched in the throat.

This is the perfect simile, and this moment is a perfect example of the grace (pun intended) we trans people are expected to display in the face of microaggressions like this. And this is an example where the microaggression was accidental—Grace and her ex are on good terms! Yet it happens, and even when you know there is no malice behind it, it’s painful.

All of this happens against the larger backdrop of how Grace’s team, friends, and school handle her transition. One thing I really love? The unremarkable acceptance, for the most part, of Grace and her transness. In the current political climate, it’s tempting to succumb to the idea that everyone is openly hostile to trans people. The reality, which Zeller ably captures here, is that most people … don’t care. They will use your correct name and pronouns and accommodate you even if they don’t quite accept or (as is the case with some of Grace’s teammates, at least at first) don’t understand. The hardcore transphobes are loud and shitty, but they are a minority.

Indeed, although Grace’s transness obviously runs through every page of this book, it isn’t the main source of conflict. That comes from her relationships, as it should. Grace’s return to football, which consumes a lot of her time, strains her newfound female friendships that have been a source of strength and solace. Similarly, Grace’s ambivalence about pursuing a college football career, while connected to the celebrity conveyed by her status as a trans athlete, is ultimately about something much deeper: her relationship to the game.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to any readers that Zeller is writing this during a time of intense scrutiny of trans people (especially trans women) in sports. (I recently reviewed Fair Play, by Katie Barnes, if you want a primer.) One of the Boys sidesteps some of these issues by Grace playing in a sport that is, while nominally co-ed, effectively a boys sport. If Grace were instead joining Riley on the girls soccer team, that would be a different set of challenges. Nevertheless, she still faces undue scrutiny and notoriety. Yet it all comes down to feelings, or as Grace and her teammates call it, feelingsball.

Everything I know about football comes from my repeated viewings of Remember the Titans. That was a movie, which had swelling music by Trevor Rabin and lots of visual cues to convey tension and get the audience invested in the pivotal games. Zeller has to do that all with words … and, incredibly, she succeeds. I learned more about kicking than I ever knew. More importantly, I actually have a better understanding now of the kind of camaraderie and investment that young men put into football. This belies the stereotypical views I have held about football since long before I realized I wasn’t a man. Yes, Zeller’s depiction showcases the more toxic, overly macho aspects of the game too—but it goes deeper than that. She makes a strong case for why Grace would want to continue playing well into college.

This makes the ending even more poignant. I love the ending of One of the Boys—all of it. Everything, from Grace’s decision about college to her relationship status to some of the developments with minor characters. Zeller avoids trite, contrived resolutions in favour of decisions that make sense for her characters and also show promising maturity. Some of these resolutions are very happy, others feel bittersweet—thus perfectly capturing the tumultuous nature of this time in one’s life. High school graduation marks a time of transition (pun intended) for all of us. We all have to decide what parts of ourself to keep and what parts to leave behind.

This novel is not perfect. I wish we had seen more of Grace’s dad, for example, and how he was advocating for his daughter. The whole kerfuffle around the podcast and the resulting protest action, while very realistic, felt really compressed for time. Yet these are minor quibbles.

I want this book to be a movie so bad.

One of the Boys made me laugh and made me cry. Whether we’re talking sports stories, trans stories, or high school stories, by any measure this novel is excellent and one of the best I have read this year.