This Is How It Always Is is a sort of fairy tale about a mom who wished for a daughter, a dad who tells stories, siblings who watch out for each other, and how even if you do everything just right, life is never easy. This is the story of parents doing their best to raise their transgender child in a world that fears and rejects those who don’t fit cultural norms. It is clever, funny and heartbreaking, and enlightening. Frankel happens to be the […]
Transgender superhero YA.
Danny Tozer has always known she should have been born a girl, and we know this on the first page. The first scene of this book features her hiding in an alley, dressed otherwise like a male, and painting her toenails; this is the only outlet she has as a closeted trans fifteen year old in an emotionally abusive household (her dad is a colossal asshole). But everything changes when her toenail painting session is interrupted by a superhero/supervillain fight. Dreadnought, one of the most powerful superheroes, is shot […]
Love and other strangenesses
Meet Shannon Mc Farland: in one night, she goes from atop the world to underneath it. Now, as anyone who’s read a Palahniuk novel knows, the problem is not giving away the twist, and dancing around this one is going to be difficult. This novel is about the bonds of love and friendship and the illusion of outward appearances. It touches on desperation, toxic families, and hatred: it does a bit more than flirt with suicide. For those of us with triggers related to drug […]
Banned Book Week Selection
Over the past few years I have begun to pay attention to reading books by or about members of the LGBTQ community. In general, I’ve tried to be more aware of my reading habits and expand them generally. It was a boon to me then that one of the tasks for Read Harder challenge was read a book by or about a person who identifies as transgender. I shortlisted three, but decided to go with Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin as […]