Zenobia is a trans girl who's been sent from Arizona to Maine after the death of her abusive father. Now, living with her aunts Lucy and Phil and attending a public middle school for the first time, she can finally live as a girl. Zen makes friends, including genderqueer kid Arli Kedum and veir table of misfits and Christian girl Melissa Martin. When someone vandalizes the school website with bigoted messages, Zen, a talented hacker, investigates the mystery.
Zenobia July contains examples of:
- Alpha Bitch: Natalie Davenport and her popular friends make fun of Zen whenever she walks past their lunch table.
- Butch Lesbian: Phil and Lucy, who are a lesbian couple, both have short hair and wear men's clothes. Before school starts, they try to help Zen shop, but they know so little about girl clothes that Zen starts the year with only three outfits.
- Dedication: "In memory of Leelah Alcorn and of all the other children who couldn't find a way through. This book was born out of pondering what needed to be different in order for you to endure and survive."
- Disgusting Vegetarian Food: Phil and Lucy aren't used to having a kid in their house, so all they have to eat is vegan health food. At first they pack Zen's lunches, but after they send her to school with a mysterious green goop that she's too afraid to try, she talks them into letting her buy her own lunches.
- Does Not Drive: As Phil says, "Me and cars, we don't get along real well." She doesn't explain exactly why she doesn't drive.
- Drag Queen: Phil and Lucy's friend Sprink, short for Sprinkles La Fontaine. He understands fashion better than Phil and Lucy, so a few weeks into the school year, he takes Zen shopping and helps her pick out two weeks' worth of outfits she likes.
- Friendly Address Privileges: Phil and Lucy have both told Zen not to call them "ma'am." She has a hard time getting used to it because she was raised to speak formally to adults.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Zen doesn't like to take the Lord's name in vain, but she says "Jeezum" because her mom told her it doesn't count.
- Hacking Minigame: In-universe example. On Lukematon, Zen's favorite gaming platform, the admin space consists of virtual tunnels that can be accessed through trap doors in the game environments. By moving virtual levers and dials, Zen can see other players' data and change the game world however she wants. She thinks the creator of Lukematon must have a whimsical sense of humor.
- Homeschooled Kids: Zen was homeschooled by her father from age five. After the death of her mother, her father became increasingly paranoid and controlling. By the end, Zen wasn't allowed to go outside their trailer in rural Arizona. While her father was out working or hunting, she would finish her homeschool lessons by herself, then spend the rest of her time online.
- Honorary Uncle: Sprink tells Zen to call him Uncle Sprink.
- Innocently Insensitive: Everyone at school thinks Zenobia is cis. When she reacts to the news that Elijah has been outed, Arli thinks she's transphobic and lectures her over text about the importance of educating herself so she can be a good ally. On her next school day, Zenobia so dreads the idea of another lecture from Arli that she eats lunch in Siberia, as the kids call the most deserted corner of the lunchroom. Later, Arli tells her how lucky she is that she'll never have to deal with harassment because of her gender identity. When Zen finally comes out to Arli, vo apologizes for how clueless vo must have sounded.
- Meaningful Rename: Zenobia chose her first name because it starts with a Z and ends with A, and her last name because July was when she got her name legally changed, and it starts with the same letter as her original last name, Jarecky.
- The Nicknamer: Arli gives a nickname to any kid who sits at veir table, including veirself. Starling is Arli, Chantal is Dyna, Greg is Clem, Elijah is Gizmo, and Zenobia is Zen (although she thinks that one doesn't count because her aunts already call her Zen).
- No Brows: Natalie makes fun of Zen for having caterpillar eyebrows. After Natalie edits feelers and googly eyes onto a picture of Zen's eyebrows, Zen tries to pluck them with tweezers, but she can't get them to look the way she wants, so she keeps plucking until she doesn't have any hairs left. The next day, Uncle Sprink comes over and shows her how to draw on eyebrows with makeup.
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair:
- Aunt Phil has a red, orange, and yellow Mohawk and multiple rings in her ears.
- Clem, one of the kids at the misfit table, has a buzz cut on one half of his head and long blue hair on the other.
- Passing Notes in Class: Melissa passes notes to invite Zen to game night with her family.
- Playing Sick: When Zen hears that her classmate Elijah is trans and has been Forced Out of the Closet to the whole school, she's so upset by what happened to him, and by the idea that it might happen to her, that she feels like she can't finish the school day. She tells the nurse she has a stomachache and groans in pretend pain until Phil comes to take her home.
- Potty Dance: During game night at the Martins', Melissa and her mom start talking about how tragic it is that Elijah's parents have encouraged his "delusion" that he's a boy. Zen wants to hide from everyone else but also wants to act natural, so she asks where the bathroom is while she does a potty dance on her tiptoes.
- Punch a Wall: When Zen realizes she's plucked out her eyebrows, she punches the medicine cabinet and throws the tweezers into the bathtub.
- The Quiet One: When she first starts school, Zen can barely bring herself to talk above a whisper. She grows more confident over the next few months.
- Secret Room: Arli has a key that veir older brother Lynx gave ven. The key unlocks a maintenance tunnel that leads to a small furnace room in a deserted elementary school. No one ever goes there besides Arli and Zen, and no adult has been there in decades, judging by the outdated hairstyles in a magazine Zen finds lying around. Arli calls it the Fieldwork Sanctum and uses it as a Contemplation Location.
- Sensory Overload: On her first day of school, Zen is overwhelmed by the movements, noise, and smells of the other students between classes.
- Shy Bladder: On Zen's first day of school, she uses the girls' room for the first time but is worried someone will peek at her. Just as she's starting to relax, the Girl Posse walks into the bathroom, loudly talking smack about one of their classmates. She doesn't manage to pee until everyone else is gone, making her late to class.
- Tears of Joy: Zen cries when her aunts tell her they've gotten her an appointment at a gender clinic. Weeks later, she cries even harder when Uncle Sprink does her makeup in a way that hides all the boyish features she dislikes and makes her look beautiful and feminine.
- Tomboyish Name: Phil is short for Philomena.
- Vanity License Plate: Melissa's mom has "SOGR8FL."
