Review: If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

Title: If I Was Your Girl
Author: Meredith Russo
Genre: YA Contemporary / LGBT
Publisher: Usbourne Publishing
Published: June 1st 2016
Page Number: 304
Rating: 2/5

Summary:

Amanda Hardy is the new girl at school. Like everyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is holding back. Even from Grant, the guy she's falling in love with.

Amanda has a secret.

At her old school, she used to be called Andrew. And secrets always have a way of getting out.

 

REVIEW

 

If I Was Your Girl was on the list for one of my most anticipated releases of this year because it was a book about a Transgender girl who's making her way through school and finding love. And since I've not read much LGBT fiction, I was really looking forward to this. Especially since the US edition has a Transgender model on the cover.

 

However. My expectations were way to high for the book and I ended up disliking mostly everything about If I Was Your Girl. I can say honestly that it is an important novel. Meredith Russo is a transgender woman so all the important facts about being transgender (Hormones, etc) were all factually correct. But sadly, Meredith Russo doesn't have the storytelling skills to have show cased the story in the way it needed to be done.

 

Amanda has only recently come out as Transgender and yet she's already passing as a normal teenage girl. Is this realistic? No. According to the author's note in the back of the book the reason this was done is so that people could just see Amanda as a girl. But that kinds of subtracts from the book when the only interesting thing about Amanda is that bold fact she's Transgender. Amanda has no personality, she's very two dimensional. We see snippets into her past but we only just got a little taste and nothing else. It felt forced and almost as if Meredith was lazy and didn't want to add any depth into the story.

 

And that's not the only thing that was so far fetched. Grant - who's Amanda's love interest - seems to accept her for who she is so quickly after her secret is exposed. And I'm not saying that there won't be people who accept Transgender people, there's tons of them, however. The trust between them was broken and trust takes ages to rebuild but it almost seemed like nothing had been affected between them.

 

I understand that acceptance. We all sort of crave it in a way that makes us seem pathetic, but I just wish that Meredith Russo wrote a book about a Transgender girl who's life was realistic and not fictionalised. I wanted the truth - stripped back, raw honesty that showcases the life of a transgender girl.

 

 

 

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Review: The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

Title: The Art of Being Normal
Author: Lisa Williamson
Genre: YA Contemporary / LGBT
Publisher: David Fickling Books
Published: January 7th 2016 (Paperback edition)
Page Number: 357
Rating: 4/5

Summary:

Two Outsiders. Two secrets.

David longs to be a girl.

Leo wants to be invisible.

When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…

REVIEW

One of my blogger friends, Kayleigh recommended The Art of Being Normal to me. I knew the premise was something I was certainly interested but due to it being out in hardback I had to wait until the paperback release. And Kayleigh was right.

This book was so good.

Gender Identity is super important for me, I don't class myself as either male or female because I don't feel like I honestly am. I'm just myself. So it was really refreshing seeing a book deal with Gender Identity so well. Not only that but The Art of Being Normal is one of the most important books of our time. A lot of people could learn from this, not just children or teenagers. But parents and grandparents alike.

For a YA Contemporary book I was super happy that it was set in the UK, mainly because it was refreshing as most are set in the US on beach costal towns, which is fun sometimes, but sometimes I just want a good book set in the UK. Being completely honest though, The Art of Being Normal was also nostalgic for me, it took me back to the times when I was 9 and 10 years old strutting my stuff around the house in my self-made dress constructed out of my bed sheets, scarves and towels.

Right now I just want to raid a bookstore and hand everyone a copy of this beautiful, brilliant novel. Just. Pick. It. Up!

 

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🎧: U Wear it Well by RuPaul

ARC Review: George by Alex Gino

Title: George
Author: Alex Gino
Genre: Middle Grade / LGBT
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: August 25th 2015
Page Number: 240
Rating: 5/5

Summary:

BE WHO YOU ARE.

When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.

George thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. George really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part . . . because she's a boy.

With the help of her best friend, Kelly, George comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte -- but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all.

REVIEW

So remember when I said that HIM was my favourite book of 2015? It was only in my last review, so I'm going to guess that you do. Well, now it's not. Because George came right in and slapped it out of that position.

I will kick off and say that reading Middle Grade books is a huge thing for me, so huge in fact because I never seem to connect, relate to any of them. But George is a book that I knew I had to read, not because I received it to review but because it's on a subject that I value so close to my heart. I have friends who are Transgender. I also questioned my gender when I was 14.

George may be a Middle Grade book but the topic is so important. And when a book is on that topic you have to be very careful that it doesn't come across as "preachy". But Alex Gino has mastered it well and wrote a simple story of a girl who was born in a boys body. A girl so different to everyone else that she just wanted to be who she truly was.

This book screams acceptance. In fact I cried so much because of the amount of acceptance there was, from George's best friend Kelly, who stood by her side constantly. To her head teacher, who let me tell you, completely surprised me. It was truly a beautiful thing to read about. The story does deal with the whole confusion from family but it was so well done that it was completely realistic.

After finishing the book in a few hours the words out of my mouth were "This book needs to be on the school curriculum. There's so many lessons that children could learn from this." And I stand by what I say. A lot of people don't understand that children understand a lot more than they think and it's honestly one of those 'Oh, okay.' things when they're young.

I'm not aware of Charlotte's Web. I've heard of it but never watched the movie and read the book. But I found myself loving how the book intertwined the play into it. It was the main centre of the book and honestly the best moments happened during their performances. I loved every page, every sentence, every word. George is a novel so important. It will save lives.

 

'A Copy of the book was sent for a honest review.'

 

 

 

 

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