Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir by Zoë Bossiere

Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir Reviews

• 
  ♥Milica♥

  Absolutely loved this memoir, there are hardly words to describe how wonderful it was. If you pick this up, you won't regret it, trust me. Especially if you're a part of the lgbtqia+ community, and, hell, even if you're not, this might show you a different kind of worldview. I also recommend the audiobook for maximum enjoyment.
  
  Highkey one of the best memoirs ever, I'm not kidding.
• 
  Elizabeth Sanders

  Content Warnings: Transphobia, Suicide, Animal Cruelty, Intimate partner violence / abuse
  
  Cactus Country is a rich, powerful memoir that I could not stop reading. Bossiere's work is moving not just due to their impeccable writing skills, but also due to their sincerity and empathy. They do not sugarcoat their darker experiences, but they evoke compassion for their earlier selves and the companions at different stages of life. The moment that I remember most was the descriptions of boys killing beetles (and how it was one of the only 'allowed' outlets for their anger, frustration, and powerlessness). The action is not presented as good or justified, but merely as a fact of life; the why behind it matters more than the actions alone. Triumphs, like their learning to love writing, are cathartic, but likewise tempered with reflection.
  
  I particularly admired Bossiere's ability to share with others what it was like as a trans, nonbinary person at various stages of their life and their gender fluidity. They carefully lay out how actions, words, and appearance -- even the same ones -- are "different" to people depending on how they view your gender identity/expression. In showing not just how they moved between the worlds of masculine, androgynous, and feminine, but why they did so, I think they offer powerful insights and a means of understanding their lived experiences.
• 
  Shannon

  Most compelling memoir I’ve ever read
• 
  Georgie

  Really really Un-Put-Down-Able.
• 
  takeeveryshot

  can't even talk about it!
• 
  Pais

  Cactus Country is easily one of the best memoirs I've read in years.
  
  Zoë is a kid who's newly arrived to the Cactus Country trailer park outside of Tucson, Arizona. Outside of school, they spend their days running around the desert with the other boys, causing mayhem, and learning the rules of boyhood. Zoë is also a boy, though their body doesn't match that label. This memoir takes us through over a decade of growing up trans/genderfluid (even though the author didn't have that language to describe themselves at the time): simultaneously romanticizing and yearning for boyhood/manhood, while also living through the less-than-glamorous parts of anger, violence, bullying, and emotional repression.
  
  The Sonoran Desert is its own character, richly rendered in that same paradoxical way that masculinity is. The desert is beautiful, but also harsh. The prose is beautiful in describing the otherworldly sunsets, the crunch of gravel and sand underfoot, the vibrant flora and fauna of the desert Southwest. It also captures the searing, melt-your-flip-flops heat, the dangerous javelina, and the prickly cactus that thrive in such a hostile place.
  
  Like any good creative nonfiction, the landscape, characters, and inner thoughts are allowed to be as complex as they are in real life. In each chapter, Bossiere recalls vignettes that often feature boys and men in Cactus Country, at school, and at UofA. Each one has multiple facets, good and bad, and you can envision young Zoë holding each one up to the light and questioning, “Is this the masculinity I want to emulate?” The answer, as it is for anyone grappling with their gender identity, is complicated.
  
  I know I'll be coming back to this book multiple times. Highly recommend.
• 
  g

  absolute gem. tender yet spiky, lot of love for this one.
• 
  Lindsey

  ✨ Review ✨ Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir by Zoë Bossiere
  
  Thanks to Abrams Press and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!
  
  This memoir zooms in on Zoë's childhood, teenage years, and early 20s in Cactus Country, a trailer park in Tucson, Arizona. Before arriving to Arizona, Zoë cut their hair short and passed for a boy in a lot of spaces, and the early chapters of the book talk about this kind of rough boyhood and the feelings of not quite fitting in. As they got older, passing became harder, and they experimented with different ways of dressing and acting in public spaces. This book was really powerful in conveying these feelings of what it means if you don't quite fit in, if you have shifting feelings about gender, and if you can't find the resources and people you need to quite figure that out.
  
  I'm not sure this review is really doing this memoir justice, but I really appreciated how it pushed back against binaries, and pushed my ways of thinking and empathizing.
  
  The pace of this is pretty fast and I loved reading it - often I couldn't put it down. There are parts that are sad and frustrating but wow was it engaging! Memoirs aren't always my favorite to read in print or as ebooks, but this one really kept me in the moment. Highly recommend!
  
  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
  Genre: memoir, queer representation
  Setting: Tucson, Arizona
  Pub Date: May 2024
  
  Read this if you like:
  ⭕️ trans, genderqueer, non-binary perspectives
  ⭕️ reflections on manhood and gender
  ⭕️ coming of age memoirs
• 
  Alisa Wilhelm

  I loved this! The easy storytelling and and gentle lilt of the phrasing was so easy to listen to, even while Zoe's coming of age was prickly. I picked this book up because I wanted to hear about Tucson.
  
  The last time I visited Tucson, I was shocked by all the changes. High rise condos, shiny new university buildings, yuppie restaurants downtown. I'm glad the economy was picking up and the city visibly had more activity but I also wondered about that grittier, rougher time from a decade before.
  
  Zoe's Tucson is the dusty, hard scrabble Tucson. A magnet for all sorts of quirky folks who take an unconventional path in life, who are always on the path and never quite feel settled down. Zoe's unusual upbringing didn't surprise me; it felt familiar, actually. I could recognize the houses, the eerie fear of unexpectedly crossing paths with a javelina, the melting asphalt sticking to the sole of your sandal, and the people, even if I hadn't met the same ones Zoe writes about, are still characters I had met before.
  
  Where have the rock hunting hippies gone to, and how are they earning cash now? What about the guy with all the doll heads glued to his car, where is he living? Or the kids trying to make a punk scene happen on sleepy 4th Avenue? Does the tamale lady still wait in the Bookman's parking lot on Friday afternoons? I hope they are doing well.
• 
  Max✨

  I love this book so much. A memoir about gender and Tucson, two things I think about often. I spent nearly half my life in Tucson (not by choice lol..) and the language the author uses to describe the city rings so true. I often call Tucson a 'black hole' because when you try to leave the city it somehow pulls you back in. They describe similar feelings and the whole time I'm like omg YES.
  
  One of my favorite lines about Tucson is, "I can't stay in Tucson another year, no matter what it takes. This place is like death."
  
  Like, yeah, Tucson can be beautiful blah blah blah but it is also is unbearably hot most of the year and is just kinda soul sucking.
  
  Beyond Tucson this is a memoir about growing up in a body that does not feel like your own. It is about the gender euphoria the author experienced as a child that came with hanging out with the other boys at the RV park and being referred to with male pronouns. It is also about the gender dysphoria that came with puberty and the overwhelming search for a gender that felt right.
• 
  Beauregard Francis

  It was fine? The first parts following Bossiere's childhood in the desert and their struggles with their gender identity were compelling, but it kind of fell apart pacing-wise toward the end. The final epilogue chapter was kind of baffling and I think the book would've been better without it. The writing style is kind of bland in my opinion as well. Still, an interesting narrative!
• 
  EvaDerksen

  5 stars!!
  
  this was a beautiful and compelling memoir. really really good. illuminated for me so many experiences i have never had nor will ever have, as well as the ones that are deeply human and universally felt. i will definitely be reading more by this author
• 
  Lucien

  Rating a 5/5 for the essential story and voice here - genderfluid experiences, especially by rural and lower-income folks, are not published nearly as often as they should! - but would rate closer to a 4/5 for the way the memoir was structured. Bossiere has a marvelous way of placing readers in their childhood, developing characters through specific sensory details, dialogue, tension, conflict, plot, and more, and making space for all characters to be, like they themselves are, messy, complicated, and three-dimensional. I'm so inspired by that and feel I got to know "Cactus Country" well.
  
  That said, the ending of the book felt very rushed - in a genderfluid person's memoir, I wouldn't think their choice to have a baby would be mentioned in a couple sentences (I'd imagine their healthcare and personal experience was complicated and challenging at times), or a first-gen student's experience in a Master's program and then a Doctoral program to be given such short space. I was also less a fan of how man-identified mentors were given much more space and voice in the memoir than woman-identified mentors, even though Bossiere's Acknowledgements lists many femme-named people as essential.
• 
  Jennifer Kelly

  Zoë Bossiere’s gripping debut memoir is part coming of age tale and part unraveling of gender—set against the backdrop of the Arizona desert trailer park where Bossiere grew up. In Cactus Country drugs, violence, and suicide were regular features of Bossiere’s childhood, but so were love, friendship, and acceptance. With tender precision, Bossiere paints a riveting portrait of an artist as a young man who’s shaped but not defined by their gender or their past as they come into their own—a hopeful young adult in search of a meaningful life, a teacher, a writer, a survivor. I’ll be thinking about this story for a long time.
• 
  Kellylynn

  Loved this memoir, so heartfelt and honest. The story seemed to fizzle and fade once they left for college but I found that it also represented how life tends to do that as well. I loved the last chapter, yes it summarized everything but I felt it really rounded out their feelings about life and where they are now.
  
  It can be a tough read, the things they went through as they were trying to find their identity were rough. So many tough topics: sexism, abuse, drugs, personal identity, phobias...
  
  I won this in one of the giveaways.
• 
  Erin McQuitty

  I found this memoir on Libby and it definitely deserves more reads… Zoe is a local Tucson author recounting their childhood and life as a gender fluid/queer person in Tucson. Very well written, this was as much of a narrative on their gender exploration as it was on the Tucson landscape. Definitely worth a listen!
  
  Side note, I CACKLED when they said they lived at Northpointe during undergrad at UA and referred to it as “Knifepointe”💀 Also loved the shoutouts to Taco Shop, Bookmans, and other various Tucson landmarks that hold a special place in my heart.
• 
  Laurie

  I enjoyed this book a lot. There are some parts that are tough to read(animal abuse, sexual abuse homo/trans phobia). It’s an important book to read in this day and age. They write in a way that might help other kids that are struggling to find comfort knowing there are others like them out there. Proof that some can overcome challenges and end up with a life they deserve.
• 
  Sam

  Excellent memoir. I would give it 4.5 stars. Bossiere paints an incredible picture of the landscape of their boyhood and the characters that inhabited it. This can be a tough read at times, as there are lots of examples of animal and child abuse, self harm, and class conflict. But the story of Bossiere’s boyhood in Cactus Country is well written, fascinating and insightful as well.
  Once we get into the author’s college and grad school years, while still interesting and well paced, we lose the background of the desert and it starts to feel more expositional like we are obligated to get to the present day and the “end”. As opposed to maybe keeping the story encapsulated in Cactus Country and adolescence. Overall great.
• 
  Allison

  Received an advanced reader copy through work. Won't say much besides I loved it. I wonder if author studied "The Liars' Club" as this book reminded me so much of that archetypal work (bold statement I know). Highly recommending to all my friends already.
• 
  Liralen

  Bossiere's boyhood was both banal and singular: a childhood move to an RV park in Arizona meant running free with the other park kids, some of whom were there year-round and some of whom dropped in and out. Desert life meant javelinas and paloverde beetles, chasing freight trains and washing windows and enduring the question are you a boy or a girl? over and over again. No space for anything in between, but equally no space for the simpler answers that Bossiere wished to give.
  
  The boy I was does not know there are other children like him. He only knows his own body, his own desert. How to keep pace with the boys in the pack and how to blend into the brush under gnarled ironwood trees. The boy only knows how to survive. (loc. 3727*)
  
  This is my favorite book of 2024 to date. Just the setting would intrigue me—I've never been to the American Southwest, and there's a dusty sort of pull to the idea of growing up in an area so remote yet seasonally touristy. But add to that Bossiere's wrestling with gender, and the way it's not so much a personal understanding of gender that is the problem but the assumptions and demands the rest of the world makes and runs with—and then add to that race and class and economics and education and gendered violence and the park residents who helped shape Bossiere's understanding of what it meant to be a girl and what it meant to be a boy—and the layers get ever thicker. It helps that Bossiere brings an intensity to the craft of writing that was honed in the scorched days of Arizona summers—feels like something where that intensity came first but translates extremely well to writing.
  
  If this story sings in your bones the way it does in mine, I recommend picking up
  The Sunset Route for some of the same themes and maybe for roads not taken in Cactus Country.
  
  Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
  
  *Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.
• 
  Erica

  more to come :-)
• 
  Solara Calderon

  A poignant, beautifully written memoir about the author’s upbringing in the unique culture of the desert. Eye opening account of gender fluidity.
• 
  KB Brookins

  one of my fav memoirs that I’ve read this year💖
• 
  Susan Keller

  A very good account of the authors early life, trying to be how she felt herself to be. An eye opener for those who have not dealt with questioning our gender. Recommended for all readers