Author- Meredith Russo
Series- N/A
Published- 2016
Page Count- 293
Publishing House- Usbourne Publishing
Rating- 3/5 stars
About the Author
MEREDITH RUSSO was born, raised, and lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is a mother to a wonderful four year old, a cat with an attitude problem, and a few dozen trans people around the globe. Her star sign is Aries and one of her birth arcana is the Tower, so naturally she is a disaster.
Her debut novel, If I Was Your Girl, won the Stonewall Award in 2016, as well as honors for the Walter Dean Myers Diversity Award and the Lambda Literary Award. She has also contributed to Radical Hope, Meet Cute, (Don't) Call Me Crazy, and the New York Times. The best place to keep up to date on her current work is Patreon, where she publishes one short story, one novel chapter, and small multimedia side projects every month. Her next major novel, Birthday, is set for release in April 2019.
You definitely, absolutely should not be shy about contacting her, even if it's just to talk. She's always open to new opportunities and chances to speak with new people.
Taken from Meredith's website.
Plot
Amanda Hardy is the new girl at school. Like everyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is holding back. Even from Grant, the guy she's falling in love with. Amanda has a secret. At her old school, she used to be called Andrew. And secrets always have a way of getting out. A book about loving yourself and being loved for who you really are.
Taken from Goodreads.
Opinions
I had picked up If I Was Your Girl back in 2017 as a part of the diversity bingo challenge that was floating around, but for some reason I never picked it up at the time. I am now trying to tackle my TBR pile as much as I can and this was one of two unread contemporary books I had, so I decided to read it. Going into it, I knew it was an own voices novel about a trans girl written by a trans author. I really enjoy reading own voices books, especially as they capture their stories so well.
I flew through this book, reading it over two days. I am a big fan of easy to read books and this one was no exception. I enjoyed my time reading it. The story was fun, while tackling some of the heavier issues such as gender dysmorphia and suicide. It found a nice balance between the sweet and serious in this book.
That being said, I did feel that to story was underdeveloped. You could really tell that it was a debut novel. As a writer and someone who is doing a degree in Creative Writing, I felt that this book didn't follow the golden rule of "show don't tell". We were very much told everything rather than shown it. This is something I've become hyper-aware of since I started studying writing myself, but I'm always able to pick up when something isn't quite right in a book. Personally, I would have benefited from more backstory. We got some backstory, especially for Amanda, but the rest of the characters didn't have quite the same level of detail.
I think that because of the writing style, this book suffered in the character development department. All the characters felt a bit 2D to me and none of them were really fleshed out properly. I couldn't connect to a single one of them. They were also supposed to be between the ages of 17-19, but none of them felt it. They came across much younger than they were written.
I hate to be overtly negative, especially as I did enjoy this book, it just ended not being 100% for me. I did learn a lot about the trans community and experience, something I had never really thought about before as a cis gendered person. I have made the decision to donate my copy as I feel someone else will benefit from it more than me, but I'm still glad I decided to take the time to read it.
Carenza :) x
