I was originally going to give an even 3 stars but decided otherwise when more of the story started to bother me. I originally didn’t mind the idea of Zenobia being perfect at hacking but it started to grate on me when some of the issues in this book (like transphobia and religious bigotry) are trying to be handled in a realistic way. Arli was kind of hypocritical and vo got on my nerves with how vo would sometimes speak over Zen or ask invasive questions, and very rarely that got addressed. (Genuinely, vo is one of the most frustrating genderqueer characters I’ve read about in a while.) The mystery advertised in the blurb didn’t appear much with all the other subplots being dealt with, none of Zen’s friend group felt fleshed out except for Arli(which was troubling because it risks tokenizing a couple characters—cough, Dyna), the resolution frustrated me, and because the first third was more focused on middle school than the hacker it meant that the graphic transphobia came almost out of nowhere.

(And about Arli: was the weird Nezel stuff in reference to Lisa Bunker’s newest fantasy novel?!? I just realized the culture the main characters are in that book is the same name as the fictional thing mentioned here. So was that based around a fictional country?? Because I was so confused. Why would we have a fictional country referenced in a contemporary novel?!?!?!?)

But. I loved how Zenobia’s gender was handled through both her highs and lows, her dysphoria was uncomfortably relatable(what is it with middle grades invoking repressed emotions I had in 5th grade), I mostly liked how her complicated feelings about her deceased religious parents were written. I won’t lie, I was optimistic about having a book with a religious trans MC when I started it. Some of that nuance was ruined, though, because of the overly young language used. (Your main character curses. It’s okay to use more complicated words than “She missed the old times, even though they sucked so bad.” But that was unintentionally funny so at least there’s that.)

The interludes shouldn’t have been in this book. They made this book a structural mess, and contributed nothing except for making Zenobia seem almost morally perfect. (With the exception of the Grandma’s, because I thought her struggling to understand her trans grandkid but still loving Zen was handled well.) That last one with Aunt Lucy got on my nerves.

I did, however, love Uncle Sprink. But I’m pretty sure everyone else did, too. I wish he got more page time because I liked how he bonded with Zenobia, and also he was genuinely a lot of fun.

(Last footnote: I appreciated how Zen broke off her relationship with Melissa. That was another bit of subject matter that I thought was handled well.)

It turns out that “Joy, To The World” is also by this author, so I’ll inevitably end up running into her work again, but this was…not promising.