Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

Kai Cheng Thom's first book, a surrealist novel styled as a memoir, follows an unnamed young Asian trans girl who is a pathological liar and a kung-fu expert. Born to Chinese parents in a rainy city called Gloom, she runs away from their abusive home in search of love and sisterhood. She finds a magical pleasure district called the Street of Miracles, where larger-than-life trans femmes have made their home. Thom wanted to write what she had needed as a trans teenager, not a memoir explaining trans lives to cisgender readers. She began it after a New York publisher turned down her poetry, writing a chapter a day for ten days.

Emma Watson chose it for her online book club, Our Shared Shelf.