Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t prepared for how *alive* this audiobook would feel. Adri Almeida doesn’t just narrate *Fierce Femmes*—she *embodies* it. Her voice has this smoky, knowing quality that makes even the most outlandish moments (a sentient wig? a gang of trans sex workers who double as folklore heroes?) feel grounded. When the prose shifts from lyrical to brutal, she shifts with it, her tone sharpening like a blade. That said, there were moments where the pacing felt *too* breathless—Thom’s writing is dense with metaphor, and Almeida’s rapid-fire delivery occasionally left me rewinding to untangle a particularly knotty line. But that’s a minor quibble in what’s otherwise a masterclass in audiobook performance. The story itself is a wild ride: part urban legend, part survival guide, part love letter to trans femmes who’ve had to lie to stay alive. I loved how Thom plays with structure—chapters flicker between fairy-tale cadence and raw, present-tense urgency, and the audiobook’s production leans into that contrast. The lack of a traditional arc might frustrate listeners expecting a neat three-act story, but that’s the point. This is a book about the messiness of transition, the way identity gets mythologized, and the cost of being both visible and invisible. The ending, in particular, left me gutted in the best way—ambiguous, defiant, and *so* trans. If you’ve ever wanted a coming-of-age story that feels like a molotov cocktail wrapped in sequins, this is it. Just don’t expect to walk away unchanged.