mollusskka's Reviews > If I Was Your Girl

If I was Your Girl is my second book that deals with transgender theme. My first one is Lily and Dunkin. So, reading this book is like reading Lily's transgender life only she's more grown up and her name here is Amanda. Both Lily and Amanda got bullied at school. They also has a forbearing and understanding mother but an intolerant father.

What's new from this book for me is that now I got to see how a fully transgender people like Amanda socializes at high school where no one knows her story. How she had a crush on a boy like Grant and finally how they make love. Of course it's not easy for Amanda. She always says to take it slow when it's not the only reason.

At first, with the appearance of Chloe, Anna, Layla and the outsider Bee in Amanda's circle, I thought this story were going to be something like Mean Girls, with Amanda as Cady. Because she's so popular in her new school. Everybody wants to be like her. Every boy's dying to be her boyfriend. And as the homecoming party getting closer, suddenly I smelt the plot of Carrie, which was a bit similar, in fact. But after (view spoiler)[the spill of the "dark secrets" (hide spoiler)], what I thought before was completely wrong. This is no Mean Girls wanna be.

I like the story telling. It's told between the present and the past but not bewildering. The process of transgender is described in a light and uncomplicated way and it is a satisfactory for me. Through this book I found out that once a transgender surgery is done, one doesn't immediately become a woman. Like Amanda said:

"It was going to be hard. I was going to have to pretend to be a boy for a little while longer. No matter how much I tried to hide it, classmates and family members were going to notice my body change. The bullying would probably be worse than ever..."

I can't imagine if I were Andrew/Amanda. I don't think I would be as strong and brave as she is. Though she once tried to kill herself, she's still a brave girl. I'm so glad with the ending. It's kinda cliffhanger but I'm pretty sure how Grant would react after reading all Amanda's story. And just like Lily and Dunkin, there's a happy and heartwarming ending between Amanda and her father. The message is crystal clear:

“Anything, anyone, is better than a dead son.”

Oh, by the way, though there is a girl model as the cover of this book, but I have my own Amanda's in my mind and that person is: