This book was so good!! It's simultaneously feels very YA and not YA at all — and that's a good thing. As a trans woman who both didn't come out in high school and isn't super feminine, I really resonated with Grace and her experience. The way Zeller writes about Grace navigating being "one of the boys" while also figuring out her gender was something I've never seen in a main stream published novel, and it made me feel seen! Also, the way Zeller writes dialogue feels natural to how young people speak today, which is not an easy accomplishment.

One of the boys follows Grace (a senior in high school) in her experiences in sports (football) as a trans person as well as relationships with friends, love interest, family Ect.
I felt connected to and ended up rooting for Grace a lot, who's a caring, thoughtful and isn't afraid to defend herself. Football also has a big part in the book, which I skimmed over for the technical parts because I don't know anything about football lol. The book also had flashback chapters which I loved because it gave characters depth and histories. Overall, I found this a solid YA coming of age book which was light hearted generally but definitely explored other themes as well.

I know exactly nothing about football; whatever small inklings I’d gleaned in high school were washed from my mind immediately after. So it says something about the writing of this book that I was able to feel the tension and the hype as the characters were making some of their plays.

The mix of the camaraderie and the pettiness, maturity and teenage buffoonery between Grace and her friends was written so well it got me nostalgic. Significant care clearly went into all the major characters to make them feel like full people. Of course Grace most of all got to show a lot of messiness and a lot of growth. (Her pre-coming out behavior where everything in her life was starting to be touched by that deep misery and self-hatred and the inability to look the cause of it in the eyes was leading her to lash out irrationally was painfully realistic. That pain does make everything about itself. Contrast that with the ending where her future was still imperfect but she could take the bittersweetness as it was and still be joyful.) But all the characters had their depth. Even when some of the conflicts skewed into the stereotypes of teen drama they were handled in a way that treated the characters as people with meaningful motivations and the ability to self-reflect.

Spoilers
I really liked the ending between Zoe and Grace. It’s not the kind of ending to a romantic subplot I can think of seeing in many books I read as a teen — two people who were compatible and did have love between them realizing that they didn’t come together in the right way and aren’t who they need to be in that moment to do right by each other in a relationship — and it feels kind of meaningful to see. It felt like the right conclusion to their development throughout the story and it was a satisfying place to leave them despite being open-ended and a little sad.

I’m from the UK, so a lot of the football terminology went completely over my head. I didn’t need to understand exactly how to play football to enjoy and appreciate Grace’s arc, however, which was stellar. Such a good little teen/YA read, made me feel so warmed by the encouraging and supportive experiences Grace has.

I love love LOVED THIS BOOK SM. It was a beautiful story with amazing trans rep, loveable mc and side characters. Grace was such a lovely character i enjoyed every second of following the story with her. Her journey of realizing her true self, dealing with both gender and body dysmorphia and her coming out was just written so well i couldnt not cry and feel for her. Istg i just want to protect her and keep her in my pocket safe. Also her coming to terms with her relationship with football, the team, and how she fits in was beautiful to read. I really loved her character sm she was so real like literally a realistic depiction of a teen girl.
Out of the entire friendgroup i loved Ahmed, Dary, and Tab the most. Though i think Ahmed is the top for me. I JUST LOVED HIM SM. honestly to me he was a good arab muslim rep. He was so funny he had me laughing out loud but also really nice i wanted to give a hug
This book dealt with real issues trans women face such as trans-misogyny amazingly and was really well written. I would highly recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

Absolutely LOVED this book. More trans girl stories!!!! I was immediately engrossed in this story from the first line of the book. I could not get enough of Grace. Don’t you just LOVE teens who are messy and real and have emotions?? Cause I do. This book was literally everything I want in a YA contemporary.

I loved Grace’s journey throughout this book. I loved the flashbacks and how you can see that she changed. Absolutely adored her relationship with her dad and how it grew. The captains!! Obsessed with them. Dray being her biggest supporter?? Closely followed by Ahmed?? Yes. God I love the friend group dynamics SO much. The fierce love between they was too real and I KNEW IT (about Dray) and let’s just say a few lines about him and HIM had my little queer heart squeezing.

I smiled, laughed, got choked up, and felt anger several times. This book had me wanting more and more. I cannot WAIT to read more from this author. Incredible debut.

Thank you to NetGalley and Levine Querido for giving me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I loved the opportunity to read a book with a trans-femme MC, especially since so many of the books I’m around/have read have trans-masc MCs— it was a nice change of pace to get a different point of view on the trans experience. And I really enjoyed it! Loved the characters, who all felt so real and authentic, and I loved the attention to detail that the author put into this work— she clearly knows her stuff! I do have to say, the one thing that I didn’t love was the very “inside-baseball” (or, in this case, “inside-football”) terminology. I just think that overall it was a bit too much of the language that you’d only understand if you *know* football. There was definitely a place in the book for some of it, but as someone without an in-depth knowledge of football, it was oftentimes hard to keep up with the sports lingo. But that was really my only critique!

The first thing that drew me to One of the Boys was its beautifully designed cover—an eye-catching introduction to a story that delivers both heart and substance.

This YA novel follows Grace, who has recently come out as trans and stepped away from her school’s football team. However, she’s convinced to rejoin, setting off a journey of self-discovery as she navigates her role in different social circles and works to figure out her future path.

The story alternates between Grace’s current experiences and flashbacks to her life before coming out. Through this structure, Zeller sheds light on the challenges faced by trans athletes, particularly in today’s sports world. The narrative brings these struggles to a personal level, allowing readers to connect with Grace’s emotions and the obstacles she faces.

While the book leans on familiar tropes of the YA genre, they are well-executed and serve to create a relatable, engaging reading experience. It may not aim to surprise, but its predictability doesn’t detract from its charm. Instead, it delivers an important message in an accessible way.

One of the Boys is an enjoyable and meaningful read, combining a heartfelt story with a timely exploration of identity, acceptance, and resilience.

This book hit me in my feelingsball. I doubt I’m using that term correctly but I had to try anyway.

In the story, Grace is a young trans woman who enters her last year of high school after the summer she quit football and started her transition. She means to leave football behind but her old team comes begging her for her kicker skills, and this unravels the quiet year Grace planned on having.

One of the Boys features some beautiful friendships, portraying the complexities of queerness and being a teen, and my heart was so full knowing that Grace had such wonderful friends in her corner. This is truly a protagonist you’re rooting for the entire time, which is a refreshing switch-up from morally grey characters where you don’t actually know if you want them to succeed.

Though the football stuff left me making confused European noises, this was a joy and a blast to read, and I highly recommend it.

I've been following Victoria for a couple of years now on Twitter/BlueSky and have always adored her tweets. Once I saw that this was available to read, I knew I needed to read it. I'm so glad I did - this is a YA novel that doesn't read like a YA novel, which is the highest praise from me. I absolutely adored Grace and her journey through finding herself with (and without) football. I can't read to read Victoria's next novel!

3.75 stars. I’m not really the target audience for this book: it’s about a trans teen girl who plays football, and I’m a 30-something cis woman who doesn’t follow sports and is increasingly picky about YA. So it’s a testament to the author’s skill that I enjoyed this as much as I did. I love that it portrays a type of character who’s underrepresented in YA: a jock who’s not particularly into books or the arts. A lot of the football talk went over my head, but I’m so glad this book exists for queer and trans football fans. It’ll be relatable to anyone who’s ever felt like they’re not the “right” kind of queer, or like they have to choose between two different aspects of their identity, like they’re too X for community Y but too Y for community X. It’s also funny and great for fans of friendship-centric books.

It’s very of the moment: “Twitter/X” is mentioned; Grace comes out as trans on Instagram, is interviewed on a podcast, sends TikToks to her friends, and says things like “cis” as a noun and “Fellas is it gay to stay dry when it rains?”

I have slightly mixed feelings about the ending. On the one hand, I appreciated how real it felt, that it's not a fairytale ending, but it's still a good one. On the other hand, I found it odd that one of the biggest decisions of Grace’s life (spoiler) happens off-page and is only mentioned after the fact, in the epilogue.

Probably my first read of a young-adult labeled book and extremely great! Not going to rate it very well because I’m obviously not the target audience and some parts made me cringe a bit but amazing book as it was extremely smooth and the characters were very interesting. Would definitely recommend it to younger audiences.

A very heartwarming story about youth, trans and sports.

Well written and researched and establishes a strong emotional bound to the characters in the book.

"One of the Boys" is a debut novel about a trans girls life post-coming out, and American football. Im adding "American" to the name because Im European and completely unfamiliar with this sport, yet I had no trouble immersing myself in the chapters with games. I wasnt completely lost, thanks to the author explaining everything so well. At the beginning of the book Grace, and the readers, are faced with a question: "Is there space for a trans girl in sport?" By the end of it, we will hear a loud and clear "YES!", as Grace forges her own, different path in this transphobic world.

Now, more than ever, books such as this one are extremely necessary. Depiction of misogyny trans girls face was very important, and I dont think Ive ever read a book that examines a trans persons life after they come out and have to live their lives true to themselves, and the hardships that they face. Im very glad I live in this particular era in which I can read books such as this one. From the bottom of my heart, thank you author.

I loved the way the chapters set in pre-coming out times were written, and I love the addition of them. The feeling of despair is one Im very familiar with, I just hope I can one day feel as happy as Grace does at the end of the book. Spoiler, I guess?

This book was very hopeful and inspiring. Its fast paced, and can be read very quickly. It has strong character development and a great cast of loveable and diverse characters. I LOVE Graces Dad. Im so happy for Riley and Imani!!! All of the boys are so great, but Ahmed has my heart... The way Graces situation with Zoe is handled is satisfying.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC!

A gorgeous and important story. So very sports coded but such important character development as Grace transitions, discovers herself and the whole school is challenged in their beliefs and acceptance of all people.

In her last life, Grace Woodhouse had it made. She was the star kicker of her football team, basically guaranteed a scholarship, had a close group of friends on the team, and had a gorgeous girlfriend. She also used to be a boy. She gave up football, her favorite thing in the world, to transition. In some ways, she's significantly happier now. At times, the bigotry is terrible, but her new queer friend group is good. She misses football though. So when the boys tell her they can't do it without her, she returns to the football field and has to contend with bigoted teammates and opponents, the news on her tail, and what her future in football could possibly look like. At the same time, her identities as "jock" and "queer" run headlong into each other, stirring up conflict with friends, and that ex-girlfriend is still beautiful and maybe still interested.
I loved this. This book made me care about football! Do you know how big an accomplishment is? I cared about football. Grace is a delightful character, complex and up against a lot. All the side characters, both the queer and football friends, were incredible. Also, they all talked like teenagers and were so funny. The group chat asides were stupid and hilarious (there is a group chat named "Ballbagz 4 Christ;" need I say more?) and this was just such a heartwarming book and I loved it.

This is probably the best book I've read in 2024! I'd give it more than five stars if I could.

It's fiction but with so much realness that I feel I know these characters. I live in a different country to Grace and her friends but I'm sure they're friends of people I know in real life or on the internet! Some characters I love, like Dray a gay black football player, and Tab a queer theatre girl, and Grace's father, down to earth and supportive even if he's if still working out what that looks like.

Some characters I hate, like the close minded jerks who don't want Grace playing sport, not even with the guys' team that she used to be part of. I enjoyed the sports games and football isn't my thing. The humour, the pain, the social media trolling - all so real!

The story is beautifully paced and has good highs and lows. Very skillfully executed. Highly recommended if you like inclusive books about diverse characters.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I had a great time: this book was heartwarming and frustrating and endearing. This book is queer but also it's about football and demonstrates how even if you want to just stick to sports, sometimes your entire existence is political. It was beautiful to watch Grace's journey and navigating her transition amongst people who know and grew up with her and how she was perceived afterwards
I love the way Victoria Zeller switches point of view to go into the past to truly have us take on Grace's perspective and the confusion and frustration and anger that gender dysphoria has.
I think this book is important because of its subject matter especially in this climate where trans people are facing more and more media scrutiny and hate truly for existing. It holds space for people that traditionally perceived hyper-masculine football often does not accommodate and is definitely a must read.

I really enjoyed this. It's a pretty unique plot that I haven't seen before, and I thought it was handled really well. There's so much hatred surrounding trans folks playing sports and I think this book did a really good job of showing the human side to it that so many terfs refuse to consider. It handled some tricky things but did it with a decent dose of grace and a lot of levity so that this wasn't all doom and gloom. This is definitely one I would recommend and I'll be interested to see what Zeller releases next!

Thank you to Netgalley and Levine Querido for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really don't care about football but the author's love and deep knowledge of the sports bleeds into her book.

When Grace, former kicker, comes out as trans she must restructure her last year of high school around changing social groups, reuniting with the sports and finding her place in it without alienating her new queer friend group. Then there's also college, her former girlfriend who may be questioning her sexuality and the reality of teenage transition.

This book deserves a long review from me but it deserves a new spot in the pantheon of trans YA. There's a complicated balance to strike between the depressing reality of transphobia and transmisogyny and the hopeful yet sometimes emotional tone of Young Adult fiction. Grace's story isn't one of rainbows but it does offer moments of tenderness, love and hope throughout.

It's a complicated journey from new queer friends who don't understand why Grace is still so attached to the jocks and football and the football crowd made up of both supportive and transphobic players. Then, there's the media attention on playing sports as a trans girl, and Grace deals with that in different ways throughout the book.

As a young trans lesbian, Grace is caught in a messy situationship with her ex-girlfriend who is maybe coming to terms with her bisexuality while hiding all of it from everyone. Grace hides so much, keeps so much to herself in a way that is relatable to many people who don't want to be burdens and should realise that the people in their life are there for them.