A young Asian trans woman runs away from a city called Gloom to the vibrant Street of Miracles. There she quickly finds herself amid a crew of other trans women with whom she can confide, laugh, and...one day form a gang to exact vengeance upon the transphobes committing hate crimes. This is also a novel full of mermaids and ghosts and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Thom challenges the memoir genre by muddying the waters of fact and fiction and ends up weaving such a stirring tale that it won't matter if she's lying to you or not.
This was one of the most unique memoirs I've read (the other being Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House). It is most definitely fact, but it is also most definitely fiction. It has a lot of difficult moments, but its fantastic framework acts as almost a cushion to soften the blow while at the same time lending it extra gravity. So much is packed into this short novel that it left me feeling a little like I had just awoken from a dream. Highly recommended, especially if you like a bit of genre bending.
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