Mark is transgender. He’s known it his entire life, which has been one of lying—to his mother, to his classmates, and to himself. Every day that he is a boy is a reminder that his life is wrong, and he must continue the lie that he isn’t a girl, and is agony—especially now in high school.
Caitlin arranges parties at the start of each school year, to get to know selected new kids and to maybe do a little matchmaking. She invites Mark with the specific idea of matching him up … to herself. It’s awkward and humiliating, but she learns the truth about Mark.
Their lives are told in alternating chapters, but it’s not a simple story. Mark only exists at school, while Jennifer is around after school and on weekends. At least there’s ongoing treatment at a gender clinic, but the doctors want the half-and-half arrangement to continue on into the next year. Meanwhile, Caitlin helps Jennifer learn the social roles and rules among teen girls, and Jennifer acquires new friends for the first time in her life.
It can’t last. Tension and pressure mount as Mark and Jennifer each try to balance the other, just to survive. Caitlin has her own problems, too, with her body and her family. Meanwhile, life goes on, with shopping and parties with girlfriends, and with boys paying attention to the girls. But it’s increasingly difficult to keep up the daily masquerade as Mark—and it’s only a matter of time before someone realizes that Mark is Jennifer …
Reviews (2)
Much wider point of view but still entertaining
Most stories that feature a transgender person are either written in the first person from the viewpoint of the t-person or with an omniscient narrator focused on the t-person. Many include a best and understanding friend who helps the t-person through transition. Even then, they other person, that friend, is only seen as they relate to the t-person. This gives little or no light to the feelings of the friend or the toll that it may take on his or her own life and completely ignores the fact that the friend also has their own life to live and may have their own problems to deal with. If the reader isn’t a t-person but is perhaps that friend or someone who could become that friend, a book like this can help provide the missing understanding and help both the friend and the t-person navigate their friendship. It would be even better if the book had an entertaining story about real and believable people with real and relatable problems. This is that book. It presents the friendship and the transitions of each, of different types but equally important in alternating chapters of each one’s point of view. You will like both of them and you will be glad to have shared this part of their lives.
From pain comes great joy
Ms Bishop has woven a great story abput two BFFs even though one is technically a boy. Mark is having a hard time hiding Jennifer. Correction Jennifer is having a hard time playing Mark, especially when Caitlyn finds out. Just as Jennifer is defined by her supposed sex Caitlyn is defined by her breasts. Both are redefined though not without pain. A powerful and positive look at being trans.
