If I Was Your Girl

If I Was Your Girl

Meredith Russo

2016, Flatiron Books

9781250078407

 

Fiction

 

if i was your girl

 

Reading Level: HL770L

 

Interest Age: 14-18

 

Annotation: Amanda is a teenage trans girl who just changed schools, and she is trying hard to keep her secret while leading a normal life.

 

Plot Summary: Amanda Hardy has just moved to a new town to live with her dad. She is starting at a new school and is concerned about keeping her secret—she is trans. She doesn’t want to get too close to anyone so that she doesn’t let her secret out, but she starts to make friends. She also meets Grant, who is sweet and she can’t help but fall for. She stops guarding herself so much and lets people in, but how long will she be able to keep her secret?

 

Critical Evaluation: I can’t really judge this book in the way I usually would, because whether I like it, or whether it’s “good” is almost irrelevant. This book needs to exist. The author, the main character, and even the cover model are all trans women. I believe this is a first for YA fiction. Trans people have been so underrepresented in literature, especially YA. I thought this book had issues, of course. Some of the difficulties of transition were glossed over, but I understand why that might be done in a book like this. I don’t like the way that Amanda was outed by someone who had never been indicated to be anything but her friend, and I especially don’t like that it was a bisexual character who was portrayed as fickle and inclined to betray everyone at the first chance she got. I thought Grant was a sort of flat and weird character. But I’m willing to overlook all of this for a book that normalizes a trans character and treats her as an ordinary girl with ordinary feelings.

 

Author Biographical Information: Meredith Russo was born, raised, and lives in Tennessee. She started living as her true self in late 2013 and never looked back. If I Was Your Girl was partially inspired by her experiences as a trans woman. Like Amanda, Meredith is a gigantic nerd who spends a lot of her time obsessing over video games and Star Wars. (source: https://us.macmillan.com/author/meredithrusso/)

 

Ties to Curriculum Units: Gender studies, bullying

 

Booktalking Ideas:

  • Discuss the difficulties of Amanda’s life as a trans woman
  • Discuss Amanda’s experiences with bullying for National Bullying Prevention Month

 

Challenge Issues: LGBTQ themes, sexual content

 

Challenge Defenses:

  • Mention awards the item has won or been nominated for
  • State the library’s collection development policy
  • Reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights
  • Provide rationale for the item being in the collection
  • As a last resort, offer the patron a “Request for Reconsideration” form

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