Dylan Mulvaney’s New Book Paper Doll Will Offer ‘a Level of Vulnerability That I Didn’t Get to Show Online’ (Exclusive)

Content creator and actress Dylan Mulvaney is celebrating her third year of girlhood in a big way: By putting out her first book.

Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer comes out March 11, 2025 from Abrams Image. The book, the first in a two-book deal with the publisher, features essays and full-color illustrations, and “pulls back the curtain on her ‘It Girl’ lifestyle, with a witty and intimate reflection of her life pre- and post-transition,” according to the official synopsis. “It’s both laugh-out-loud funny and powerfully honest—and is a love letter to everyone who stands up for queer joy.”

And much like Mulvaney’s own journey, which she’s documented on her “Days of Girlhood” TikTok series, the book has been a long time coming. In some ways, Mulvaney, 27, tells PEOPLE, it’s been germinating since she first started writing in her journal at 14 years old.

“I’ve been a big journaler throughout my entire life. And so I did this thing called The Artist’s Way,” she tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. “And that really got me just putting words down on a page. And these journal entries, which are sort of the things that I couldn’t talk about online, are very personal anecdotes that really were never meant for other people’s eyes.”

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“But I think that’s why they’re special is because they’re really for me and getting to share them is kind of the most vulnerable version of how I can tell people things,” she continues. “Last year, I went through a lot of rough experiences in the media and in brand marketing and in my personal life that then I realized that I wanted the book to take kind of a different turn. And so I started writing these essays about that experience and about these other kind of messier parts of my life, and those are interweaved through the journal entries. So it does kind of hop around timelines, but I think it kind of shows how messy my life is, how messy the book is. And I think hopefully that will keep people entertained.”

Mulvaney jokes that, if readers find “something’s not hitting for you on one page, there’ll be something for you on the next one.” Illustrations throughout echo her childhood love of classic characters like Eloise (at the Plaza) and Madeline, leaning into her ethos that adults deserve a little whimsy, too.

“I think a large part of the book is this idea that adults can still be innocent and earnest,” the actress explains. “And I think a large theme of the book was all the moments of people trying to rip my innocence away from me and trying to reclaim it over and over again, as well as trans joy. Because I think there’ve been so many moments these last few years where I could have become sort of a jaded person or a pessimist, and I’ve always chose to not, which I’m really proud of.”

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For Mulvaney, whose one-woman show, F*GHAG, at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh received five stars from Playbill, is also looking forward to sharing all of the many facets of herself in a new way, whether readers have followed her online or are coming to her through the book for the first time. Even the title of Paper Doll calls back to “this picture-perfect image that I think a lot of the time we project on social media.”

“It’s a play on words in the way that we’ve got this book and then ‘Doll’ is kind of a term that trans women use for each other,” she explains. “This idea of Paper Doll is this sort of two-dimensional figure of somebody building something, but that’s a thin reality. And I think a lot of the world often sees me as some version of transness in their head … Through this book, they’ll be able to get a much better idea of who I am and how my emotions operate and less of this picture perfect image that I think a lot of the time we project on social media.”

As she looks forward to letting her audience in to her life in a new way, Mulvaney also hopes to offer something for everyone. “It’s funny because I’ve been thinking a lot about who the audience is for this book, and I think it’s an 18-year-old girl, whether she’s cis or trans, and her mom and her grandma,” she says. “Because I think I love this idea of multi-generational abilities to connect with something,” adding that the book features “some raunchiness, but lots of giggles.”

“I think there’s also a level of vulnerability that I didn’t get to show online,” she concludes. “And so I think that [my audience is] kind of anyone, whether they’re in the trans community, an ally, a follower of mine. I do love the fact that you can read this book and not have seen anything of me before. But for my followers, there are a few touch-base moments that they might remember seeing online as a fun playback, but it goes so much more in-depth of what was actually happening behind the camera.”

Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer comes out March 11, 2025 from Abrams Image and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.