I can't wait for everyone to discover this book. It's beautifully written, empathetic, funny, vulgar, kind, with a level of subject-matter expertise that makes my sports sicko heart soar. There's a large and colorful cast of characters, each one is memorable and distinct and not everyone is redeemed, just like in life. It humanizes trans people and trans athletes in a way that our society sorely needs. There's regional beef, and bad coffee, and teens being teens, and a deep affection for every interest and social group that sustains the human condition. It's about figuring out who you are, and who you used to be, and how those pieces fit together to make the life that hopefully advances to becoming your best self one day. I loved every minute of reading it, and I can't wait to revisit this book time and time again. Oh, and there's a Spencer Hall epigram.

3.5

One of the Boys is a book about sport, friendship, daily life as a teenager but is also a book about queerness and more specifically about being a trans women in high school.

Grace is a 17-years-old girl who came out as trans during summer and now she must esperience high school being her true self. She resigned her previous life as a football player and she broke up with her girlfriend, but giving up on what and who she loves was the right choice?

I really appreciated the narration switching between present and the past, before the transition, it really made it easy to understand what the main character felt like while dealing with her gender dysphoria and is also a way to learn what happened before the story started.

Even though the football scenes are very long, detailed and maybe too much recurring I very much enjoyed the found family built between the teammates and how the majority of them accepted Grace and respected her, especially coming from an environment that’s usually filled with hate and prejudices.

There are no content warnings at the beginning of the book so I prefer to clarify, if this kind of content triggers you, that there are transphobic and omophobic episodes in this story but they’re part of the plot and depicts how much real life can be hard and unfair for queer people.

Grace Woodhouse is a hs senior who gets invited to play w her hs’s football team again after thinking her football career is over now she’s out and living as a trans girl (and a lesbian!)

The story spends most of its time in the present where Grace is juggling football, new friends, old friends, college recruiters, journalists, and transphobia

We also get snippets of her past, sometimes as a kid but mostly her junior year where we see her dysphoria come to a head

Grace is such a relatable character; many of her struggles are typical to being a teenager, though quite a few are very specific to being a trans girl in sports

Which was rough but her friends and one of her coaches have her back in so many ways. I loved her football friends SO MUCH and her two queer best friends and their little group are so wonderful—

For a story with so many side characters, I was surprised and impressed by how well developed all these characters are

If you love gay sports books you’re gonna need to read One of the Boys

If youre looking for that friends-who-don’t-know-each-other-but-turn-into-found-family feeling from heartstopper, you should definitely pick this one up!

As soon as I heard about this book, I knew I wanted to read it. I am not a sports person, but I just knew this would be so good - and it did not disappoint! One of the Boys is such a great story of friendship, community, high school, and, yes, transmisogyny in sports and in general. Even as this deals with heavy topics, this overall felt like a light read because it’s so full of love and community and support. It kept making me emotional in the best ways, and I love Grace and her story. I also really liked the way past scenes were recounted in second person, almost like it was a way for Grace to step away from who she was Before. This really is such a warm hug in so many ways, especially the friendships Grace has with her fellow football players, who have her back in the biggest ways. I found it hard to put down, because I couldn’t let go of Grace. The ending was so satisfying and overall I had a lot of fun with this book. I cannot wait to see what Victoria Zeller will write next!

This was great! The author seems to be fairly young, and this is her first novel, which makes it especially impressive. It has a large cast of characters, and portrays a lot of different queer identities, and it manages to make everyone come across as a real person.

Hi there👋🏻 One of the Boys is an ARC I got from NetGalley, that is set to release May 15th 2025. I can start off by saying it's a queer book aimed at young adults, and mentions transphobia/homophobia, racism and bullying.

We meet Grace, the main character, who is trans and love American football. She came out a couple weeks ago, and now needs to adjust to her new life as a girl. One of the Boys is mostly a book about friendship, and being a teenager struggling with yourself, but football is also a pretty big part of the book.

I honestly loved it way more than I thought I would. I knew I would like it, but I'm not a sports fan, and thought that my aversion to sports might make the book a little unenjoyable. But it was not a problem at all, and I even learned a lot about the sport!

The queer space is the biggest focus, and Grace herself is trans and lesbian. Her struggles with adjusting to school, sports and her new everyday life are a big part of the book. Finding out who she truly is, and want to be, is tormenting her. I think many people will be able to relate to her, even if you're not trans or lesbian yourself. Just being considered a woman who likes more 'manly' things, like sports, might be able to relate to Grace. The struggles with friends and teenager drama is pretty relateable to most folks as well, and this setting is also part of why the book is aimed at young adults (I assume).

I rated it 4.75/5 on StoryGraph. The only thing I wish we saw more of was her relationship with her dad. But at the same time - she is a teenager, and will most likely not hang out with her dad that often, which explains why we don't meet him that much. I still think it would elavate the book, and could've worked out in the books' favor.

Overall, One of the Boys is a great book that I would recommend everyone to read!

I really enjoyed this book! There was so much good stuff in here, all of which gave me feelings. And I loved how Grace’s relationship to football itself was also examined and considered with the same care as her relationships with her teammates and friends. I also LOVE a YA book where not everything works out perfectly so the ending really worked for me. Can’t wait to add this one to my library’s collection.

I absolutely adored this book! As a big fan of lesbians, trans people, sports, and trans people and lesbians who play sports, everything about this hit. It balances the scary realities that being trans holds with humor and sweetness and joy. Also I learned a lot more about football from this than from watching only the Super Bowl every year for the halftime show. Five out of five stars, I truly cannot recommend this enough. Genuinely one of my favourite books of the year (and I've read over 100).

So after the *everything* with the election in the last 48 hours I needed a distraction from thought spiraling, and getting approved for this ARC at the right time helped with that. It also helps that the book is fantastic, and felt like it was written for someone like me- a trans woman who grew up playing sports and still plays flag football recreationally as an adult.

One of the Boys is about Grace Woodhouse, a 17-18 year old trans girl who recently had to quit the football team she loved when she started her transition before her senior year.

Grace was such a great, nuanced, and lovely character. She is absolutely wonderful and I loved her every step of the way even if I didn't always agree with what she was doing. She was so easy to root for. I loved all the side characters too, Riley and Tab being great friends- her ride or die football captains, the messy relationship with her ex Zoe and even Coash Rhoades. These characters all brought life into the book.

There's so much I loved about this book- from how it discussed early transition, messy friend groups that still always show up for you, and easily the football of it all. This book also really got football right, which isn't always the case for queer YA books about sports.

For as much as I am singing this books praises, I just want people to know that there is homophobia and transphobia throughout the book, it's not going to be this easy lighthearted read about a trans character. Absolutely not a criticism from me, honestly it would feel unrealistic without it- just for a review it should be mentioned.

There was a point in my read where I wasn't sure all of the plotlines would feel satisfactorily wrapped up, but I'm happy to be wrong and I really did love how the book ended. It felt right to me.

I will point out that my ARC had some formatting and occasional spelling errors, but they didn't really bother me and I'm sure those will be fixed by release. But I just wanted to note it.

I loved this book, and I'm really looking forward to the official release so I can buy an audiobook. 5/5 for me.

I really liked this as someone who grew up playing a lot of sports and being seen as not one of the boys but too tom boy for girls I found my younger self a lot in this book when it came to that. I think the writing was well paced and the characters were interesting to follow. I love stories about girl's finding their own path especially in sports because that is what happened to me. I highly recommend and I think it was a good read

Grace used to live for football, but that was before she started to transition, and now she doesn’t know what she wants. Before, she was one of the best kickers around. When the team asks her to come back, she realizes she misses the family that was the team, and agrees.

It is hard to transition, and have everyone know you from before. Grace has to grow quite a thick skin.

This is an interesting football story, becasue that is what this is, on top of the story of transitioning. If you like football, then a lot of the plays and stories of games will probablky be appealing. I sometimes was lost, because I don’t want a lot of football, but I totally got what Grace was going through, and yes, resonated each time there was some horrible thing said to her. The transphobia and even homophobia is rampant through the book, as it often is in life.

The author, who is also trans, knows from where she writes, as she used to play football. She says she wrote this book for all the queer kids out there. She would have loved to have a book like this when she was trying to find her place. And it is important for these sorts of books to exist, to show that the “other" is not so different after all. And to also show that you can be queer and survive.

This being a voice saying, this is what I’m going through, and I get it if you are going through this too, is very important with queer youth. They often dont’ see any representation out there. It is very important to see and be seen.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book is coming out the 13th of March 21025.

I really liked this! It did feel like there was a bit too much going on and the Zoe plot-line in particular felt crammed in/underdeveloped, but overall I think this was a great debut. Grace is a realistic teen character who is easy to root for even when she's making mistakes, and I think it is so valuable for teens to have representation like her: a trans girl who is secure in the fact that she's a girl, but who also loves football and hanging out with her jock guy friends. I can't think of much (if any) good YA rep for tomboyish trans girls other than this book.