If I Was Your Girl

If I Was Your Girlby Meredith Russo, 280 pages

Amanda was born a boy.  After some serious problems she moves out of her mom’s house and goes to live with her dad for her senior year of high school. Her plan is to lie low and graduate until she meets Grant.  Grant is funny and sweet and really into Amanda.  She likes Grant but doesn’t feel right getting involved without telling him the truth.  This was a really good book about one girl’s trans experience.  The author is careful to point out that all experiences are different.  I would recommend to this to teens who like realistic fiction.

Fun Home

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel.  232 pages

This is a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel that focuses on her relationship with her late father.  Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and also director of the town funeral home (which the family referred to as the Fun Home).   After college, Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay.

I was familiar with Alison Bechdel's long-running comic, Dykes to Watch Out For, but I didn't know much about her.   In this graphic novel, it was interesting to learn about Alison's family, especially her relationship with her father.   And, it is an interesting read, although I found it kind of depressing.  Her father was a complex person, and his relationship with her wasn't at all warm.   Her parents seem at odds with each other, and not that interested in their children, either.   But, this memoir is about the author putting together the pieces of what she has learned about her father, and the book actually ends in a way that makes it seem that she is not finished.

I enjoy her writing style and her art, so I think I enjoyed this graphic memoir more because it was graphic.  I'm not sure if it would have been as interesting if it had been a memoir with no pictures, and no art.  Combining her writing with her drawings really brought the story to life with a great deal of emotion that I think would be hard to portray in any other way.

This book was made into a Broadway musical, so if this book sounds like your kind of read, there's now a musical adaptation.

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin, 182 pages

This is a great book highlighting the lives of several transgender teens.  The book has a separate chapter for each teen and discusses, often in their own words what life has been like for them.  Some of the teens are in the process of transitioning from one sex to another, some are ok with not feeling as if they are specifically one sex or the other.  Some feel as if they are gender neutral.  Some prefer to be referred to as he or she, because they identify as one or the other.  Some prefer to be referred to as them, because they don’t identify as one or the other.  This book really got into the teens feelings and struggles.  While it may not explain everything, it certainly explains that gender can be a difficult concept for some people and that not everything is black and white.  Or blue and pink, as the case may be.  A good book for teens who are struggling to understand themselves or for teens who want to understand more about what their transgender peers may be experiencing.