Customer Reviews
My book was delivered damaged, the delivery packaging was not damaged at all. However I am unable to return the book because my daughter needs it for her summer reading.
Great 🏳️⚧️👏🏽🏳️⚧️👏🏽🏳️⚧️👏🏽
Amanda moves in with her father after a traumatic bullying experience at her former high school. Her resolve to stick to herself crumbles in the face of friends and a crush, both of which embolden her to go stealth and pursue the life of a normal teenage girl.The story is both humanizing and inspiring as Amanda undergoes a metamorphosis that solidifies her identity, making the subject and story relatable to both trans and cis people alike. Russo presents a girl living an everyday life, the tip of the iceberg to the trauma she has experienced to get to where she is today, as well as the secret she's torn on revealing.Amanda is a solid protagonist for the novel's goal. I do feel as though Russo relies too heavily on trauma to drive Amanda's past and present. It feels as though she wanted to pour all of the bad things a transperson could experience into one character. It's a lot for one character starring in one novel. On the one hand, it's important to highlight the challenges a transperson can face. On the other, it can overwhelm a sensitive reader, and the traumas in the plot have little real reflection or resolution; they're primarily there to make things happen, so it's kind of cheapened into plot devices.The "honesty game," besides Amanda's desire to be normal, drives the novel's plot. Most, if not all, of the secrets that the other characters share are pretty run-of-the-mill for YA stories, but the idea of the game is cute and memorable.Grant is pretty standard as a male romantic interest. That's good or bad depending on what you want out of the story.Quite a few teens coexist with the leading pair. Sometimes I struggled remembering which name belonged to whom. A lot of that might be due a weakness on my part, but one or two of the characters did feel superfluous. Most of the side cast are otherwise characterized in a way that makes them identifiable, but the two side characters to have an active hand in the plot could have benefitted from more development, to make their roles more natural. That and the pacing was too fast between those two plot points.Overall, while the novel achieved a commendable goal, this was an average read, in my book.
I came across a recommendation for this book recently and elements of the synopsis really resonated with my inner teenage girl so I had to purchase and read it. Having transitioned later in life, I never had the opportunity to experience living an authentic life as a girl in high school so media like this helps fill in those gaps and missed opportunities. I cried tears of joy multiple times and shared in the discomfort and sadness multiple times. Highly recommended for my fellow trans-femmes, and even for allies wanting to learn more about some of the things we experience and struggles we go through to find ourselves. 🏳️⚧️💜
Nice story. This is one of the few novels where flashbacks were well done and very effective.I liked the novel. I didn't love it, but I liked it.I've read many YA gay romances, but this is the first trans romance I've read.(My own gender identity, in case you're wondering, can be summed up in four words: "none of your business.")My main criticism is that in an effort to avoid shocking cisgender readers, the author admits (at the end, in "A Note From the Author") that she made life easier for the protagonist than it is for most trans people.The protagonist, a trans girl, is pretty, extremely feminine, passes as a girl with no effort, is only attracted to boys, and always knew she was a girl. Yes, she did have problems, but they were almost entirely in her past (in the flashbacks, before she transitioned from Andrew to Amanda).Maybe "A Note From the Author" should be at the front of the book, instead of at the back, because it explains how the protagonist's experience is not typical, is not even very likely, and is almost unbelievable, by the author's own admission in "A Note From the Author".In this note at the end of the book, she explains that the protagonist's experience is unusual because it is not common for someone (in America) to know that they are trans from a very young age (her entire life), to be exclusively attracted to boys, to be entirely feminine, to pass "as a woman with little to no effort," to have a surgery her family wouldn't have been able to afford, to start hormones through legitimate channels at a very young age, etc.The author said she made the protagonist that way because she didn't want to shock cisgender readers.Okay, that's fair, I guess. Now I know why the protagonist had it relatively easy as a trans girl/woman -- because the author didn't want to shock cisgender readers.
