Zee

Readers meet Zee at the moment of her birth and follow her as she progresses in school. She is a special person, an empath, who has the talent of hearing the thoughts of others and feeling the emotions behind these thoughts. By times she is a precocious student and daughter, by times an aspiring athlete, and, other times, Zee is perceived as a boy who plays basketball and looks for trouble.

Su J. Sokol gives her readers a main character who, in many ways, is a typical teen, one dealing with peer pressure, body image issues and a need to feel loved and secure both at home and in her school and community. Yet Zee also has her particular ESP talent, giving this coming-of-age story a sense of otherworldliness or, as the author puts it “speculative, liminal, and interstitial fiction.” Just when we feel we know Zee and can relate to her, she manages something unusual, almost magical, and readers are left shaking their heads.

Zee’s four adults are her family, and they form the place where she finds safety and a sense of belonging, but this is nothing like the typical nuclear family. Mother Emma is a lawyer who lives with her female partner Meena, a psychologist. Zee’s biological father is Malcolm, a cognitive scientist who continues to be much more in her life than a sperm donor. Partnered with Malcolm is Tio Pedro, a musician who brings out the softer and more creative side of Zee. These four adults bring their own personalities and cultures into the story. They all love Zee and want only the best for her, but they are often unsure how to help her navigate her childhood and adolescence.

Sokol packs a great variety of important themes into a fairly short novel. A major consideration is what constitutes a family, whether a biological or chosen one. This theme brings both the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities into the story.

Zee wrestles with who she is and tries to find out just where she fits in. She works at understanding her own needs while learning to balance them against the expectations of others and her general desire to please the people around her instead of putting herself first. This brings to mind women’s issues and the idea that women are continually expected to put the needs of others ahead of their own, to nurture those around them instead of fulfilling themselves.

Although a very different character from many of the women in young adult fiction, Zee is not just unusual for her extrasensory skills, she is also a remarkable and memorable young woman. This is Su J. Sokol’s third novel, and fans of Zee and her world will be keen to see more of Sokol’s work in the future.