Staff Pick
Author Kai Cheng Thom has a problem with the easily consumable trans narratives that cis people love so much, wherein trans people suffer through the trials and tribulations society inflicts like angelic sacrificial lambs. In her stunning Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, she delivers us the cure. It's a memoir/not-memoir, featuring pantheons of trans goddesses as deeply complex as they are beautiful, knife fights in the name of fallen sisters, and love stories without a single cliché. This gorgeous collection of words should be a queer classic, and has earned a permanent spot on my nightstand in the company of other sacred texts. Recommended By Cosima C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards Finalist for Transgender Fiction
Winner of Writers’ Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers (2017)
In Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir, a haunted young girl (who happens to be a kung-fu expert and pathological liar) runs away from an oppressive city where the sky is always grey in search of love and sisterhood — and finds herself in a magical place known only as the Street of Miracles.
Review
“Kai Cheng Thom’s fantastical and carefully constructed writing brings the knife blade and the high heel together in an engaging, fast-paced fictional — or is it? — memoir.” The Winnipeg Review
Review
“A fairy tale, a love story, and a love letter from one trans woman of colour to other trans women and femmes of colour.” GUTS
Review
“[Fierce Femmes] effortlessly changes the rules, cracking open a space of freedom.” Montreal Review of Books
Review
“The book is high-energy and full of exciting tension from the outset, and the writing keeps you glued to the page.” Teen Vogue
About the Author
Kai Cheng Thom is a Canadian writer and social worker. She has published two books to date, the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir and the poetry collection a place called No Homeland.
Powell's Books on PowellsBooks.Blog
Radical stories from radical women, the following books challenge traditional narrative structures, eschew pat endings, play with veracity, and force the reader to reckon with the actual span of human diversity and behavior...
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