TW: Outing, Transphobia, Deadnaming (mentioned and alluded to but the name is not on-page); unsupportive parent but comes around in the end, mention and detail of smoking weed, underage drinking, alcohol; a graphic scene where she is outed & the love interest is transphobic and shouts transphobic language at her (this is challenged and called out by other characters); cancer

I was sent a #gifted review copy from the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

Lucy, Uncensored is a YA contemporary coming-of-age novel following a teenage trans girl, Lucy in her senior year of high school. She loves theater (specifically directing) and is attached to the hip with her best friend, Callie. When a college trip to their dream school, Central isn't what they imagined, the girls become  uncertain of their college plans that have been set in stone for most of their life. When Lucy finds a women's college, Botetourt has an excellent theater program and would be a fresh start for her to get out of her small town in Central Pennsylvania, the girls embark on a road trip. During their visit at Botetourt, they fall in love with it for the theater program and learn it's filled with LGBTQ+ and trans students. But the school still has a long way to go with their inclusion of trans and non-binary students. Plus, they've never had a trans girl enroll before. Protests begin while the girls are on campus, making Lucy hesitant if Botetourt is the right fit for her.

Overall, I enjoyed the joy Lucy experiences while she's being hit with a lot of difficult decisions and learning how hard it is to be trans and be out. For Lucy, she wants to be stealth, but learns how risky and difficult it can be. This book is joyous and will make you smile but it's not a light book as there are many instances of transphobia that Lucy faces from her peers, her father, and a boy at Botetourt. There's also a storyline where the Shakespearean play she and Callie rewrote to be more LGBTQ+ and trans focused + directed gets shut down by the school board. 

*Spoiler, but please read if you're sensitive to reading transphobia.

There's a scene where she is messaging on Instagram with a boy, Ian who's mother works in the theater department at the women's college. However, she doesn't disclose that she is a teenager in high school whereas Ian is going into his senior year of college. Wanting to be stealth, she lies and tells Ian she's planning to transfer from Central (the college nearest to her) and attend Botetourt. While in person, she and Ian are intimate in make-out sessions. Lucy is outed when she has to pick up her wallet that she lost from the campus Lost & Found, but since her license and I.D. are not up to date with her current name and gender marker, she's forced to say her deadname out loud. Ian reacts very erratic and aggressive, spewing transphobic remarks toward Lucy. The characters around them do challenge this and call out Ian and the security guard's behavior. However, this scene made me wildly uncomfortable as Lucy doesn't learn much from this situation. It makes me wonder why the authors chose to add this into the story. I acknowledge this does happen to trans folks and trans woman, especially but there's really no learning lesson from this. At the end of the book, Lucy confides in a trans man, Ayden who she meets at Botetourt who asks her about being stealth and provides wonderful advice. I just wish she had more scenes where trans folks are having these important conversations with her. I do still find it uncomfortable that she was hooking up with an older dude. I would've preferred Ian's outburst to be about her age, not her gender identity. 

That's my only big gripe with this book. But besides that, I do think this is a good and important book for trans teens to read. I liked Lucy and Callie's bond & friendship. The end make me smile as well!