Kelly's Reviews > Lizard Radio

This wasn't my usual read but I enjoyed in because it was so different. It's a dystopia, set in a near-future world with a powerful government that forces teens to be made into conforming adults. It's here we meet Lizard, who is sent to one of these camps at a very young age, and her challenge is she doesn't conform to a gender. She IDs as female, has female pronouns, but the bulk of the story is about being in that gray area -- of being two things at once. But while it is about gender, it's about ALL things not being binary and about how ALL things are along a spectrum. You aren't good or bad. You aren't a leader or a follower. You're a little of everything. It's how you choose to pursue and identify that matters and it matters only to you as a person.

The writing here is knock-out good. Schmatz can weave killer images, for sure.

I love how weird and yet completely not weird this is. I read a review that compared it to The Summer Prince and from what I know of that book, I'd say this would be a good read alike.

Genderqueerness in this book is hugely important, and it's handled so, so well. I loved the tension with Sully, the is it a romance/is it not a romance tug back and forth.