An insightful and engaging read intertwining Dylan’s first days of girlhood with present day introspection of her journey so far. I didn’t know much about Dylan before reading her book (and when I say this I mean to the point that I didn’t even know about her Tiktok origins), so I’ve come away from this with a nuanced look at a woman who’s come into her own after a lifetime of exploration and self discovery. The pacing did drag a bit at times, but the casual conversational stories themselves were all quality.

thank you, dylan, for sharing all these new facets of yourself and your art with us all! i am glad to have your presence radiating with raunchy joy and musical theatre grace from a new corner of the internet.

many thanks to abrams image and netgalley for the advance reader copy.

I found Dylan when she was very early on in her journey of being a girl and immediately fell in love with her personality. In her book, she gives an honest and open reflection on her first year of being a girl. There were so many things I did not know about the transition period that she really educated me on and a lot of perspectives I never really thought about as a cisgender woman. I watched many of her videos during her first year and still learned a lot about her from this book. I had no idea she was a stand-up comedian until now. I knew some of the damaging things she went through regarding some of her PR campaigns but didn't know from her own perspective how these things affected her so much. She is really an inspirational woman and I can't wait to see where else her journey takes her. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Love love love! This was such an eye opening and honest read. I normally enjoy celebrity memoirs, but this one was so genuine and heartfelt. Being trans is hard enough but Dylan put themself out there for everyone to read. So brave and beautiful!

Paper Doll is less a memoir and more a memoir of a very specific period of time interspersed with background/backstory and snippets of how we got where we are today. And that's cool! I usually have the notion of "oh honey you're too young to write a memoir" with certain other books but for this one, it really worked. This is Dylan Mulvaney's memoir of having "been" a boy (rather, someone designated male at birth) and her memoir of becoming a woman through the ~2ish years of transition (and exploding into social media virality) covered here. It's part narrated diary entries and part musings on events in a way that flips around via time in a way that can sometimes be confusion in its non-linear fashion, but comes together as a whole in a trans speedrun, openly acknowledging the white and influencer-privilege she has despite things that have happened (as she says, Google "trans beer girl") to try and bring her down. She's living her best life, and being someone so young still, is definitely still on the road to maturation. I'd love to listen to a memoir from her in another 20 years to see the person she's grown into. (I also don't have TikTok and have never watched one of her videos, only heard about her here and there via cultural osmosis.)

The tone is very "chatting with your girlfriends" in a way that's so accessible while also opening herself up to vulnerability and educating via "Trans 101" at times. It's a fun, quick read, and the illustrations (so far, as more are to come in the published version) are so cute! They really suit the retro vibe of the cover, too.

Thank you to Abrams | Abrams Image and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for review!

Paper doll was an excellent read. The writing was propulsive and very detailed. I would read more from this author.

This is one of my new favorite memoirs! I've been following Dylan since she began her Day #___ of Girlhood series on TikTok. She did such a beautiful job telling her story in a way that was vulnerable, but filled with her signature bubbly sense of humor. This is also great for fans of I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy.

I remember the first time I saw Dylan on TikTok (the early, early days of girlhood like Day 12 or something) & not quite understand who this person was but knowing immediately that she & I would be friends. And that’s what this book felt like, just two friends chit chatting away. Tea was spilled, tears were shed & at the end it felt like a giant hug.

I adore a good memoir and I enjoy Dylan and her content so much! I've been following her all through her days of girlhood journey so I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to listen to her memoir (narrated by the author!)
This memoir was authentic and real, funny, relatable and charming - just like Dylan herself. I had to snatch up a physical copy and the book is simply gorgeous (should I have expected any less though-c'mon, Dylan is high fashion)
Swipe to see more of the dust jacket, end pages and a peek at the inside. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. I highly recommend to anyone who has been following along Dylan's journey and those who have not!

This book is written mostly diary style, which is nice, and sounds very much like I'd imagine a conversation with Dylan going. It gives a pretty honest look at what it's like to transition as an influencer. I do appreciate Dylan addressing how privileged she was to be able to get and afford the affirming healthcare that she needed as quickly as she did.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Abrams | Abrams Image and to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I really like Dylan and I was really excited to see that she had a book. I knew that it was one that I must read.

I loved hearing about her journey navigating being a trans person. She shares her story with humor and I really liked that. I listened to part of this as an audiobook ( which she reads) and I highly recommend it.

I love Dylan Mulvaney. I loved hearing how much she’s learned in the last few years especially since beergate. I loved hearing that she pointed out that she doesn’t speak for every trans person.

So glad I got to read this memoir! Great writing and interesting to hear her story. A wonderful read!

Thank you NetGalley and Dylan Mulvaney!

I'm fairly familiar with Dylan from TikTok and other social media, but as I'm a Millennial and she's Gen Z, I'm not quite as intimately familiar with her goings on as someone a few years younger may be. However, I think her book, which includes essays in the "present" day and journal entries from the start of her very public transition, is a vulnerable look at her life, both as a trans woman and a newfound celebrity. She's funny, honest, and genuine, and I think her likability make this a quick, easy, and enjoyable reading experience.

I really loved hearing the past few years from Dylan’s perspective! She is such a cool and funny person and this book reflects that so well.

I loved the style of this book - the journal entries interspersed with essays about specific points of her journey.

If you would enjoy reading a memoir from Dylan Mulvaney, I would highly recommend this book. I’d also recommend it if you are curious about her perspective, how a trans influencer came to be, or if you enjoy pop culture and memoirs!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dylan's publishers for an advance copy of this book!

While I had this ARC before the election, I only picked it up after, which made Dylan's story all the more important, urgent, and powerful. AND, I deeply appreciate the power in Dylan's reflections because these reflections clearly come from an authentic place, which I find refreshing.

Highly, highly recommend.

Once again, I need to gush over have beautiful the cover is. Dylan is GORGEOUS.
Knowing Dylan from TikTok is one thing, but this memoir is so much more. This was like reading Dylan's diary, sometimes literally because she did put in diary entries. I loved this. It was so intimate to hear how her transition was, how her rise to fame went and how she handled (and didn't). I loved jumping back and forth with the narrative. This was truly beautiful. Thank you for letting us in.

Paper Doll was a very unique and interesting read that gave context to a lot the "controversy" surrounding Dylan Mullaney and her transition. While reading Paper Doll I actually realized that I knew very little about who Dylan was beyond her TikTok account.

The things Iiked about Paper Doll:
The formatting of the diary like entries really humanize Dylan and her point of view on the events of her first year as a woman.
The essay format portions really helped flesh out who Dylan is as a person, and why she is so interesting.
I like that Dylan acknowledges that her journey as a transwoman and as a woman is her own, and that she can't and doesn't want to speak for everyone whose story may be similar to hers.

What I didn't like:
The journal entries and the essay sections are strong separately, but I didn’t like the combination of the two. The switch between formatting, grammar, etc. between the two styles of writing was just distracting enough for me and my ADHD that I struggled to read the book. Sometimes the transition between the two portions was confusing, and I kept having to reread parts because I felt like I was missing things.

The online journal quality of ALL CAPS was kind of jarring, and I would have to back track because I was so focused on the caps and would have to reread those pages again to be able to focus on the words surrounding them. This was kind of frustrating for me personally. (I know that's a personal thing, though, and not everyone who will read this has the same processing issues as me.)

I know Paper Doll is going for an authentic and candid retelling of Dylan's experience, but there were a few situations where I felt like I was given too much information about a situation. Again, this is a personal preference thing, though. While I don't consider myself a prude, some of the little asides included were too detailed for me. The only thing I can think to compare the experience to is when you order a Sprite, and then when you take the first sip of your drink and its Coke, and your brain goes "did I order this?!"

Overall, I really did enjoy reading Paper Doll. I think Dylan Mulvaney and her team did a great job of really putting her voice in the book from start to finish. The book feels like you could be scrolling through Dylan's TikTok's, and listening to her explain these situations herself, and I think that's really what sets it aside from other memoirs that end up feeling a little too clinical.

My favorite quote (that foreshadowed the ups and downs of her year):

"These days, sometimes I don’t know if feeling like you are “the moment” is worth it. It’s a dangerous thing to believe, that you have IT, that you’ve obtained IT, because then at any moment IT can be gone. IT is disposable."

I want to thank Netgalley, Abrams, and Dylan Mulvaney for providing me with a copy of Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book so much, and truly, made me go back to some of the horrible things I have seen on the internet about Dylan, and by reading her own words I can see that we will never really know what other are going through.

I loved the first person narration. Dylan made me feel a part of her journey through the pages. I liked all the background explained on her childhood and teen years, but also of course her journey through the 365 Days of Girlhood.

I though this was a fun, interesting, honest and informative memoir. I appreciate the author's vulnerability and honesty.

I really enjoyed this memoir - I love the first person narration, it really felt like Dylan is talking directly to me while reading. That personal style of writing works really well for me in a memoir, especially one with such personal stories as this one.

Dylan is so raw in this book, you can feel her emotions as she's writing the journal entries, and how the mass public opinion is affecting her daily life. I thought the stories about her mother were truly heart breaking, and it was very brave to share those parts of her story. Having someone so important not being as supportive as you like or need is such a real and relatable struggle, so including those stories adds some value here as well.

I wish the arc had all of the illustrations, but I guess I'll just have to buy a copy once it's published to get to see them all for myself!