... [Faliveno] explores gender and identity with the honesty and complexity of a person who has thought a lot about how complicated people are, including and especially herself.

She complicates and nuances this narrative [about conservative Midwesterners] in Tomboyland, whose essays are a love letter to, reckoning with, and examination of her midwestern upbringing ...Throughout her essays, Faliveno is constantly straddling just such blurry lines, never willing to let any of her topics lie comfortably still, always turning them over to look at another facet.

I immediately saw myself in Faliveno’s debut essay collection.

Faliveno’s debut essay collection Tomboyland makes visible a Midwest region that was considered 'flyover country' before the 2016 election and became subject to all manner of sweeping generalizations after it. Across eight essays, Faliveno expertly braids memories of her upbringing with interviews and research to render Wisconsin a living, breathing thing.

Encountering Faliveno...is a pleasure.

In 'Motherland,' arguably the best essay in the book, she writes affectingly about, yes, mothers but also about family—birth and chosen—and the grief that seems endemic to the women in her family. Together, the essays offer a full-dress portrait of a writer whom most readers will be intrigued to know..

... [a] winning debut collection.

Throughout the collection, Faliveno remains inquisitive and resistant to labels, always maintaining her empowering agency. While some of the passages are repetitive, the majority of the essays are well-rendered investigations of self-identity. An expressive voice evolving deliberately, resisting having to be one thing or the other..