Advanced Book Review by Nicole: The Pants Project, by Cat Clarke

The Pants Project, by Cat Clarke
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Release Date: March 3, 2017

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

“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.

Trans Character
Contemporary
Middle School
Male to Female
Disability

Liv is just entering middle school, and so around 10 years old when this book starts, and is actually a boy. This has never been more apparent than when he enters into a school where the uniform policy dictates that people who were assigned female at birth need to wear skirts.

Although Liv never actually comes out to the teachers at school about why its so important that he is allowed to wear pants, the narrative doesn’t suffer from that. This story is above all Liv’s journey, and all the people who are important in Liv’s life do get told. And react well. Which is always nice to see.

Other interesting things about this book was that Liv’s parents are both women-the mums-and his new best friend, Jacob, is someone with a disability and a walking cane.

The author definitely made a good choice in telling the story from first person point of view with this story, which is interesting only in reflection because the subject of Liv’s pronouns doesn’t get brought up unless in synopses of the book or reviews like this one.

Cat was born in Zambia and brought up in Edinburgh and Yorkshire, which has given her an accent that tends to confuse people.

Cat has written non-fiction books about exciting things like cowboys, sharks and pirates, and now writes YA novels. She lives in Edinburgh with a couple of cats, Jem and Scout, who spend their days plotting to spit up furballs at the most inconvenient times. She likes cheese A LOT, especially baked camembert.

Website: www.catclarke.com