Mallory in Full Color –
Quill Tree Books, 2024

by Elisa Stone Leahy

Like many middle school age kids, Mallory March is not sure who she is and where she fits in.  She wants to be liked and accepted by everyone, and as a result she molds herself into whatever other people want her to be.  Her Asian American household is complicated too.  Her parents have recently divorced, and as the eldest daughter, Mal is expected to help in significant ways in caring for her kindergarten twin brothers, Wyatt and Winston.  Mal’s parents have come to rely on Mal to do what they ask of her without question, and Mal has always been agreeable, not wanting to add more stress to her parents’ already busy lives.  As the story begins, Mal is trying hard to fit into “the perfect daughter category” at home, and “the prefect friend category” at school.

Mal’s true thoughts and feelings only come out when she is secretly writing her sci-fi webcomic named Metal-Plated Heart, that she publishes anonymously under the username Dr.BotGirl.  No one knows about Mal’s love of comic book writing and graphic art, not her parents and not her closest friends. Mal keeps her thoughts and drawings about Metal-Plated Heart in a private sketchbook buried at the bottom of her backpack. But juggling all the perfect versions of herself gets tricky, especially when Mal’s mom signs her up for an afterschool swim team. Instead of being honest with her mom about hating competitive swimming, Mal skips out on swim practice and secretly joins the library’s comic club instead, which is easy as the pool and the library are next door to each other. Mal loves to draw, color, make art, and write.  At comic club, Mal begins making new more genuine friendships, including with Noa, a cute enby (nonbinary) kid who is very sure of who they are.  As Mal’s friendship with Noa grows, she becomes involved in a library program called Reading Buddies, and in helping Noa plan a drag queen story time, where they both will dress up and participate with costumes.  Once again, Mal tries to be the person she thinks Noa wants her to be, by lying about her own state fright.

Then Mal’s webcomic unexpectedly goes viral and kids at school start recognizing that the unflattering characters featured in Metal-Plated Heart are based on Mal’s real-life friends at school.  With negative pushback threatening the drag queen story time and Dr.BotGirl’s identity getting harder to hide, Mallory must reckon with the lies she has been telling everyone, both at home, at school, and at comic club.   If Mal reveals her full self, will her friends, her parents, and her new crush Noa accept the real Mallory Marsh?

Mallory in Full Color is a queer friendly coming of age story with wonderful character portrayals for middle-aged readers.    It is a nice complement to Elisa Stone Leahy’s first novel, Tethered to Other Stars, which features these same middle school students, including Mallory, of Leopold Preparatory Academy (LPA).

Elisa Stone Leahy is a queer Peruvian American children’s author who lives with her husband and kids in Columbus, Ohio.  She writes at the back of the book: “In many ways, Mallory in Full Color is a celebration – of queerness, drag queens, libraries, nerdy fangirls, cyborg revolutionaries, and even a glitter cat.  But it is also a celebration of our own messy identities.  For some, like me, it takes until we are quite grown to define ourselves.  Although my family was incredibly loving, they raised me within straight, unyielding heteronormative lines.  Terms like bisexual (attracted to more than one gender) and pansexual (attracted to all genders) were not in my vocabulary.  Even now, after learning those words and recognizing myself in them, I tend to use the more general term queer (a word that covers a spectrum of LGBTQIA+ identities and orientations) to describe myself…. When I wrote the world around Mallory Marsh, I wanted her to have every opportunity to try on different identities and to be whoever she wanted to be…. If you still don’t know what to write on your sticky name tag, just know that this universe contains a whole rainbow of different shades.  You’ll find your colors.”

This book review was submitted by Stand with Trans
advocate Barb Shumer, who is a past board member and
retired public librarian..