Be Your Most Authentic Self

I've been looking for an LGBTQIA book that really showed the experience that many transgender people go through, and Meredith Russo's If I Was Your Girl had so much promise.

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The author's note in the beginning shares that there's a lot of the transgender experience that she has made simpler, that she has made, almost, easier in order for the book to be more palatable for cisgender readers and others who might not be as open to people from different orientations or identities.

I get why she wanted to do that, but I'm not sure that I agree with how it affected her overall story. For me, as an adult reader, it came off as a story that had great potential but missed the depth that could have made it amazing.

If I Was Your Girl introduces Amanda, a girl who used to be known as Andrew before she was able to acknowledge her true self and start fighting for the life that she was meant to live. The story picks up after Amanda is sent, for her safety, to live with her estranged father.

Amanda's journey is about being who you are despite others' objections, about learning to be unashamed of the life that you deserve to live, about finding a place where you can be accepted. If I Was Your Girl is about a transgender girl, yes, but the core of Amanda's journey is something that young adult readers can relate to. In Amanda, they can find someone to resonate with, cisgender or otherwise.

That, I think, is the power in Russo's story- that she's created an important story. She's created a story that needs to be told, that needs to be shared with readers who would otherwise never know an "Amanda".

Literature, The Ultimate Superhero

Literature has the power to let someone travel to new worlds, to experience danger and magic from behind the safety of a printed page, but it also has the power to broaden the ordinary person's perspective of the world and extraordinary people around them.

Do I think If I Was Your Girl was the best novel I've ever read? No. But I can undeniably say that it's an important story, and that alone is enough for it to be a must-read for young adults and beyond.

As a teacher who'd like to hope that my students will grow to be open-minded, kind, and extraordinary people, I hope that they let literature open their horizons and let them meet friends they'd never expected to know.