The premise of this book was everything I wanted to read, especially going into Pride Month. Figures right through history who changed/manipulated/hid their gender for reasons to be explained were on the menu, starting with King/Queen Hatshepsut (Egyptian Pharaoh). The book went awry immediately for me but I tried so hard to persevere. I skimmed, I eye-rolled and I felt so disappointed.

What was so wrong with it you ask? The writing style was a disaster from the word go, sentence-by-sentence. I have never read such an annoying writing style in my life. The book seemed as though it was written by an over-enthusiastic twelve year old using every buzz word or phase-trend imaginable. There wasn't one sentence that wasn't subject to this. Brackets were used constantly to giggle-chat annoyingly in your ear.

Example:
(and here comes to the whole having to dress as a man to get stuff done bit)

For Mulan, life was pretty snore at first.

She was a proper model monk...

Joanna showed mad skills as a military leader.

I rest my case. It was impossible to read this without feeling constantly irritated. I would love to read a version of this book, just written with sense.

I was fascinated by and enjoyed the premise of this book and it was great to be introduced to many historical figures that I had never heard of, but like many other readers felt the writing let it down.
The writing often undermined or trivialised the experiences and events of the individuals featured.

This book had SOOOO much potential but felt really rushed and had such an odd writing style it's basically contributed to a reading slump.

I was really interested in this book and it has given me ideas of some people I'd like to read more about, however the writing style wasn't for me unfortunately and so for now I'll not be continuing with it.

Recommend listening to it as an audiobook - really enjoyed it!

Summary: Wait for the live show, but for now the interview at the end of the book is well-worth a read/listen.

'Feminism means equality' - an inspiring message in an excellent interview between Harry and her co-readers towards the end of the audiobook of Gender Rebels. The discussion was a highlight, combined with the very fact of a compendium of inspiring gender-bending women, old and new.

In the interview, the role if humour is mentioned. We are told that male authors would tend towards the dry and dusty, whereas women often take a more playful approach. I may therefore be self-condemning myself to charges of patriarchy by saying that I didn't find the jokes landed. Often it felt like padding. Beneath the stale styrofoam beads of Dad (Mum?) jokes was a neat little nugget of history. The job was finding it under the weighty false-levity of all those words.

Who is the audience for the book? At first I thought I'd picked up a Horrid Histories for the under 10s (no bad thing, and I'd have adjusted expectations). Then I thought it was for late teens or early 20s. Then the Spice Girls and Alanis references came, and I wondered whether I was the right age group. None of which matters, beyond how it suggests the jokes didn't make it more accessible, they just made for a distraction.

At the end, it was mentioned that Harry is a performer. Actually, I think this could make a great stand-up show. I'm imagining an overhead projector, and panel- or sofa-based format loosely modelled on Loose Women. I'd buy a ticket, and if it was in Nuneaton I'd get the train back home after.

I’m kind of with everyone else here on the tone, it wasn’t really for me. But I am a SUCKER for books with small bios of women and queer folks who were lost to history so this book immediately got me. I could get past the writing style for glimpses into the lives of people I wouldn’t have gotten to know otherwise.

DNF. I got 10 pages into it and couldnt read any longer. I appreciate what this book is trying to achieve however there is way too much commentary from the author that just made it longer than it needed to be.

When I saw this book, I jumped at the chance to read and review it. I was looking forward to reading (Or listening to rather, as this was the audiobook) about more kick-arse women in history and LGBTQIA+ woman. I already knew that many times in history that women dressed as lived as men in order to do what they wanted to and to love who they loved. It still surprises me how they managed to do it and pass as a man (I'm a trans man and found it hard to pass pre-transition, so I'm in awe of those that can pass naturally)

I wanted to love this book, I love history and I find things like this very interesting. However, I feel like this book is aimed at maybe teens more than adults. The book is full of jokes and slang terms. The style it's written in is very informal, which there is nothing wrong with. But some of the jokes were too many, where I kind of lost sight of who the chapter was about. and the information being told. I love non-fiction books that are informal and feel more like a talk with friends than reading (or listening) to something from a page, but I feel like if this was a conversation, I would constantly be asking for them to repeat what they said. This could just be because I listened to the audiobook, instead of reading it. I looked up reviews before I typed this to see if I was the only one, but this seems to be a common issue. I agree that the writing style isn't for me and maybe it's my age (24) and that this is aimed for slightly younger people, who may find the writing style to be easy to read and understand.