{"id":946,"date":"2022-09-19T17:40:27","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T17:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/?p=946"},"modified":"2022-09-19T17:41:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T17:41:30","slug":"welcome-to-st-hell-my-trans-teen-misadventure-by-lewis-hancox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/2022\/09\/19\/welcome-to-st-hell-my-trans-teen-misadventure-by-lewis-hancox\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-947 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2022\/09\/WelcometoSt.Hell_BookCover-210x300.png\" alt=\"Book cover for Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox. Shows an adult male with pointing a teenage girl in a school uniform with a speech bubble that says, &quot;That was me in high school&quot;. \" width=\"210\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2022\/09\/WelcometoSt.Hell_BookCover-210x300.png 210w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2022\/09\/WelcometoSt.Hell_BookCover.png 602w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Welcome to St. Hell (GN H19126we) <\/em>is perfect for fans of <em>Gender Queer <\/em>by Maia Kobabe, <em>Fine: A Comic About Gender <\/em>by Rhea Ewing, and <em>Kisses for Jet: A Coming-of-Gender Story <\/em>by Joris Bas Backer.<\/p>\n<p>This graphic memoir caused all the feels! It starts with adult Lewis introducing his hometown of St. Helens, England (affectionately referred to as St. Hell throughout the book) and his pre-transition self, Lois. Quick note: Lewis introduces his pre-transition self as Lois and uses she\/her pronouns to refer to himself during this pre-transition period. Lois spends the bulk of her high school career \u2013 age 11-16 \u2013 trying to be a \u201cnormal girl\u201d to avoid bullying from her classmates. Once Lois enters college \u2013 ages 16-18 \u2013 she begins to explore her sexuality and gender: she publicly identifies first as a cis-lesbian and later as a straight, transman. During the recounting of his transition story, adult Lewis interjects with poignant interviews of his friends and family, which he mentioned he used as a tool of catharsis and healing.<\/p>\n<p>Adult Lewis interjects himself into the recounting of his adolescent years to provide hindsight wisdom as well as some humor. As a child of the 90s, I appreciate the pop culture references from learning to code for the perfect Myspace page to the public\u2019 collective obsession with Justin Timberlake. Lewis Hancox\u2019s journey from adolescence to adulthood is portrayed with a brutally honest and refreshingly honest style, which made me tear up and laugh out loud. There is a portion of the book that covers Lois\u2019 struggle with an eating disorder that folks should be aware of before picking up this book.<\/p>\n<p>This is a must read for anyone who likes graphic memoirs and LGBTQIA+ stories!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-948 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2022\/09\/WelcometoSt.Hell_Panels.png-300x197.jpg\" alt=\"Two black and white comic panels. The first panel shows Lewis Hancox an adult male with a speech bubble that says, &quot;Whatever kinda hell you're goin' through, don't give up, okay? Coz in the end, it'll be reet! Copyright my dad&quot;. The second panel shows a drawing of a cityscape with the words, &quot;And if it ain't reet, it ain't the end&quot;. \" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2022\/09\/WelcometoSt.Hell_Panels.png-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2022\/09\/WelcometoSt.Hell_Panels.png.jpg 396w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to St. Hell (GN H19126we) is perfect for fans of Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Fine: A Comic About Gender by Rhea Ewing, and Kisses for Jet: A Coming-of-Gender Story by Joris Bas Backer. This graphic memoir caused all the feels! It starts with adult Lewis introducing his hometown of St. Helens, England (affectionately [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":783,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14,17,26],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uni-high-reads","tag-graphic-novel","tag-lgbtqia","tag-memoir"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/uni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}