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If I Was Your Girl

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The real turning point comes when books like this one are so ubiquitous, when portrayals of trans people are so diverse, that they become unremarkable, that “my main character is trans” is met by a “So? The bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between: this is the fifth volume of the Heartstopper series. The novel ends as Amanda and Grant discuss the future of their relationship, unsure of what it will be. Russo uses each girl to expose Amanda to a different facet of life in Lambertville and life as an adolescent woman. Amanda makes a whole bunch of friends and even starts to fall in love, but niggling just below the surface is the reminder that she needs to be careful everything she’s worked so hard for could be taken away.

Wow, what a fantastic review – I read this book a while ago, and I definitely agree with everything that you said. Update: Since reading If I Was Your Girl and reviewing it, I have learned about allegations of abuse against the author. Amanda is transgender, and over the past few years she was bullied and then assaulted at her previous high school, subjected constantly to homophobic and transphobic language and actions. The book’s largest success is that it makes the protagonist approachable, sympathetic, and likable without ever shying away from the fact that she is trans. They weren’t fooling around or anything unseemly but her dad takes it hard enough to start drinking after he kicks him out.

A girl named Amanda moves to a new town to live with her dad and meets this gorgeous guy named Grant. I don’t mean this in a condescending way at all - I mean, I’m a seventeen-year-old very-out-of-the-closet cis girl, and I think the ending of this was one of the most difficult-to-read endings I have read in my whole life. There is such a beautiful, gorgeous scene where Amanda comes to love the body she is in, a scene where she realises this body she has hated for so long is a body that can bring her such joy. Her mother is very supportive but Amanda’s home town isn’t a safe place for her since she started living openly as a girl. Also, Amanda is a very simple trans case - a complete girly girl without any confusion over her gender identity.

I told ’em I was worried ’bout what you might do when you’re alone, since I can’t take any more time off work. It was heart rending at times reading of her journey to be the person she'd always felt she was inside, and it provoked feelings of anger towards those who judged her so harshly.Some characters i didn’t connect with, some plots i found a little bit out of the blue and unnecessary. Walking home alone, she is attacked by another football player, Parker, who mocks her and then sexually assaults her.

I understand that Russo is trying to show us how, over the course of the story, Amanda’s father has slowly started to accept the idea that he has a daughter. Which I know might mean a happy ending, but it could also mean that the two of them separate forever. We want to see our triumphs, our adventures, our conflicts over non-gender-related shit, our loving relationships or happy single lives, our sci-fi thrillers and space operas, our epic fantasy quests and paranormal romances, our happily-ever-afters. So my criticism isn’t necessarily against the author individually as it is against the industry that favors this kind of narrative for the spotlight. I do like the second half, though, with Amanda coping with her identity and struggling with the truth.Both novels explore themes of gender identity, sexuality, poverty, trauma, and mental illness in Southern Appalachia, though they're lighter and way less bummer-y than that list might imply.

At the beginning of the year, she makes friends with Anna, Layla, and Chloe, a group of popular girls delighted by how pretty and fun she is. Each brings a slightly different perspective, because, unsurprisingly, trans people are just as diverse and prone to disagreement as any other group of people. I think books like these are so important, both for trans girls to see themselves represented in fiction but also for cisgendered people to learn in a “safe space” about what it might be like to be trans.

Amanda is such an incredible character, and I loved everything about her; her strength, her bravery, her acceptance and love of herself. IF I WAS YOUR GIRL is an intense pressure cooker drama centered on the chaotic affair between two interrelated lesbian couples. She tries to, but the closer she gets to her boyfriend Grant, the more she wants him to really know her. I felt like I learned so much from this book yet in such a way that wasn't boring or preachy, just a well written story in the voice of a trans character.

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