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What a wonderful graphic memoir! Liz Prince is a girl who is definitely a tomboy, and feels like she never fits in because she doesn't adhere to society's expectations of a girl. She'd much rather wear boy clothes and watch baseball with her dad than wear dresses and practice putting on makeup with her best girlfriends. I'm so glad she had a mother as kind and understanding as her mother is, a mother who loved her just the way she was and didn't mind that she'd rather wear boys' clothes. (It breaks my heart when I see mothers shoehorn their little girls into being pink and frilly and ruffly, like they're pets instead of children. Granted, my younger daughter loves dolls and the colors pink and purple and wearing dresses, but that's her choice. My elder daughter loves blue and green and is much more comfortable in jeans.)

One can hope that with all the awareness we have now about gender and the fact that there is no true "normal" that little kids nowadays won't have to feel the ostracization and the societal pressure that Liz did. Unfortunately, I know that a lot of young people still have closed minds and would expect kids to adhere to gender roles. One of my dear friends has a son who happens to have long hair, and he gets teased about looking like a girl by strangers. Why do we feel the need to force kids into one box or another? Grown men can have long hair, and grown women (myself included) have short hair. Why can't our kids make the same choices without fear of being bullied for those choices?

This is truly an excellent memoir of growing up different from the norm, and I feel like it should be required for just about everyone. Well done, Ms. Prince.