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hopedorman's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.25
moonbites's review against another edition
I am adding this to my shelves so I remember to avoid this book as a part of an ANTI TBR shelf. This is a shelf for my own records. I am not cancelling or advocating anything.
Here lies problematic books that I rather not waste my time reading. Life is too short for books I won't enjoy, I rather spend my time reading something I love.
Here lies problematic books that I rather not waste my time reading. Life is too short for books I won't enjoy, I rather spend my time reading something I love.
laynadyan's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
halschrieve's review against another edition
3.0
I got this ARC at the library I work in!
First—I really appreciate that in many senses, this book jumps into new territory in terms of YA books around trans issues. The trans character, Millie, is a mother, and has been living in her gender for some seventeen years by the time we meet her. She is a nurse who likes TV soaps and hot sauce and puzzles. She has an ambitious if self-absorbed daughter who is on the cusp of breaking into a career that she herself abandoned many years before. She is described as average and pretty. She is described as watching her daughter swimming in the pool as she sits back on the chair wearing a caftan. I like her.
Additionally, I really enjoyed Dara’s arc and the exploration and development of her personality. I appreciate her single-mindedness that gradually eases into shades of gray as she learns more about herself. Her clearly defined goal—moving out, starting her own future, pursuing a passion that may not get her money but will bring her satisfaction—is what drives her to first discover her mother’s trans status via her own birth certificate, as she tries to get a passport to go to a competition in Toronto. Additionally, her quest for her wealthy relatives is driven at least in part to 1. define herself in opposition to her mother and what she sees as unnecessary poverty that she blames her mother for and 2. access the wealth and easier, supposedly fuller life her grandparents can offer her. As the book goes on, though, she realizes that she does care about things other than her tennis career after all, and that she can choose ethically to not be a part of the harmful, bigoted world that her grandparents inhabit as uber-conservative, judgemental members of a white and monied insular world. She loves people back home. She amends her choices.
I think something else I appreciate here is that both Millie and Dara are selfish and flawed people. They’re also both people who act sympathetically given their situations. Millie, like many parents, keeps secrets to protect herself and her child, while Dara reacts with indignation to being lied to about her parents and their history and being kept in the dark about her mother’s life and traumas. They are ultimately both pretty decent.
I also want to note that the supporting best friend, Sam, is a darling, though the arc between Sam and Dara would be cooler if Sam was a girl.
My critiques of this book , which are not insignificant, have to do with the way Millie’s story is presented. For most of the book I was incredulous that any trans parent would choose to keep their child in the dark about their transition until the child discovered it as an adult—especially as the book is set in the current moment. In 2000, while there weren’t many trans people in the public eye in terms of television, there were communities where trans people (including those fleeing abusive relatives) raised their children with full knowledge and analysis of what their genders meant to them. Most trans parents would do that. Trans people don’t inherently like keeping secrets. While the circumstances of Millie’s life could drive someone to make the initial choice to conceal their identity and flee from their in-laws, I was unable at the end of the book to buy that Millie, with all we know about her, failed to even talk about trans issues with her daughter. It astounds me that Millie did not use the emerging trans activism of the 2010s to bring the topic up with Dara when she was eleven, or thirteen, or fifteen. The process of bringing up a girl child must involve many conversations around what it means to be a girl or a young woman and how people react to you. Millie had to address these ideas at some point. I cannot imagine a real person who is a single trans parent using their authority to teach their kids the same ideas about gender that harmed them as children.
I think part of this choice on the author’s part has to do with a certain flattening of trans people’s relationships toward their genders into something that is inevitably traumatic and exclusively to do with the concept of an imperfect body housing the wrong soul. While trans people early in their transition talk about gender sometimes in the way Millie does, or have never had a chance to process their traumatic histories, nearly all older trans people who have managed to avoid homelessness and job discrimination and who have moved into stable career paths have had some measure of exposure to sustained therapy and deeply reasoned strategies around coming out and keeping stealth selectively if at all. Part of this issue is the way Millie’s story is delivered via email as her daughter roams the country. She comes off as ludicrously immature and implausibly lacking in self-reflection. As a trans reader I think, what, you thought you would never have this conversation? Millie’s long emails would have felt much better to me as a reader if they were pre-prepared documents long in the making, an autobiography never shared but carefully planned to eventually introduce her daughter to a part of her past she didn’t have the courage to say .
While this still ends up being an “issue” book where the central drama revolves around the child custody battle between Millie and Dara’s grandparents and the drama of Millie’s revealed transition, Millie feels close and true and her bonds to her daughter are real and lovely.
For the other non-trans reviewers that have said they don’t know if they should give this book to transgender youth because it contains deadnaming and transphobic language: I gotta mention, to everyone who doesn’t know yet, that trans kids know what deadnaming and transphobic abuse sounds like. They get it a lot. I don’t think you’re protecting them from anything much. I think the more harmful trope in this is the depiction of one trans character who has spent her entire adult life (except the period immediately after transition) isolated from other trans people . That is a serious point against this novel in my opinion, after reflection.
Verdict: trans character is human and it’s a good mother daughter arc/ a good YA arc about reevaluating your priorities. At the same time, the trans mother’s character falls into irresponsible stereotypes about trans women being deceptive and she isn’t fully fleshed out, despite gestures toward a complex past.
Final note: love the depiction of a vegan animal rescue farm for cows and pigs run by an heiress which is bankrolled by two arch-conservative prim Republicans. Best quirky touch in a YA I have had in a while.
First—I really appreciate that in many senses, this book jumps into new territory in terms of YA books around trans issues. The trans character, Millie, is a mother, and has been living in her gender for some seventeen years by the time we meet her. She is a nurse who likes TV soaps and hot sauce and puzzles. She has an ambitious if self-absorbed daughter who is on the cusp of breaking into a career that she herself abandoned many years before. She is described as average and pretty. She is described as watching her daughter swimming in the pool as she sits back on the chair wearing a caftan. I like her.
Additionally, I really enjoyed Dara’s arc and the exploration and development of her personality. I appreciate her single-mindedness that gradually eases into shades of gray as she learns more about herself. Her clearly defined goal—moving out, starting her own future, pursuing a passion that may not get her money but will bring her satisfaction—is what drives her to first discover her mother’s trans status via her own birth certificate, as she tries to get a passport to go to a competition in Toronto. Additionally, her quest for her wealthy relatives is driven at least in part to 1. define herself in opposition to her mother and what she sees as unnecessary poverty that she blames her mother for and 2. access the wealth and easier, supposedly fuller life her grandparents can offer her. As the book goes on, though, she realizes that she does care about things other than her tennis career after all, and that she can choose ethically to not be a part of the harmful, bigoted world that her grandparents inhabit as uber-conservative, judgemental members of a white and monied insular world. She loves people back home. She amends her choices.
I think something else I appreciate here is that both Millie and Dara are selfish and flawed people. They’re also both people who act sympathetically given their situations. Millie, like many parents, keeps secrets to protect herself and her child, while Dara reacts with indignation to being lied to about her parents and their history and being kept in the dark about her mother’s life and traumas. They are ultimately both pretty decent.
I also want to note that the supporting best friend, Sam, is a darling, though the arc between Sam and Dara would be cooler if Sam was a girl.
My critiques of this book , which are not insignificant, have to do with the way Millie’s story is presented. For most of the book I was incredulous that any trans parent would choose to keep their child in the dark about their transition until the child discovered it as an adult—especially as the book is set in the current moment. In 2000, while there weren’t many trans people in the public eye in terms of television, there were communities where trans people (including those fleeing abusive relatives) raised their children with full knowledge and analysis of what their genders meant to them. Most trans parents would do that. Trans people don’t inherently like keeping secrets. While the circumstances of Millie’s life could drive someone to make the initial choice to conceal their identity and flee from their in-laws, I was unable at the end of the book to buy that Millie, with all we know about her, failed to even talk about trans issues with her daughter. It astounds me that Millie did not use the emerging trans activism of the 2010s to bring the topic up with Dara when she was eleven, or thirteen, or fifteen. The process of bringing up a girl child must involve many conversations around what it means to be a girl or a young woman and how people react to you. Millie had to address these ideas at some point. I cannot imagine a real person who is a single trans parent using their authority to teach their kids the same ideas about gender that harmed them as children.
I think part of this choice on the author’s part has to do with a certain flattening of trans people’s relationships toward their genders into something that is inevitably traumatic and exclusively to do with the concept of an imperfect body housing the wrong soul. While trans people early in their transition talk about gender sometimes in the way Millie does, or have never had a chance to process their traumatic histories, nearly all older trans people who have managed to avoid homelessness and job discrimination and who have moved into stable career paths have had some measure of exposure to sustained therapy and deeply reasoned strategies around coming out and keeping stealth selectively if at all. Part of this issue is the way Millie’s story is delivered via email as her daughter roams the country. She comes off as ludicrously immature and implausibly lacking in self-reflection. As a trans reader I think, what, you thought you would never have this conversation? Millie’s long emails would have felt much better to me as a reader if they were pre-prepared documents long in the making, an autobiography never shared but carefully planned to eventually introduce her daughter to a part of her past she didn’t have the courage to say .
While this still ends up being an “issue” book where the central drama revolves around the child custody battle between Millie and Dara’s grandparents and the drama of Millie’s revealed transition, Millie feels close and true and her bonds to her daughter are real and lovely.
For the other non-trans reviewers that have said they don’t know if they should give this book to transgender youth because it contains deadnaming and transphobic language: I gotta mention, to everyone who doesn’t know yet, that trans kids know what deadnaming and transphobic abuse sounds like. They get it a lot. I don’t think you’re protecting them from anything much. I think the more harmful trope in this is the depiction of one trans character who has spent her entire adult life (except the period immediately after transition) isolated from other trans people . That is a serious point against this novel in my opinion, after reflection.
Verdict: trans character is human and it’s a good mother daughter arc/ a good YA arc about reevaluating your priorities. At the same time, the trans mother’s character falls into irresponsible stereotypes about trans women being deceptive and she isn’t fully fleshed out, despite gestures toward a complex past.
Final note: love the depiction of a vegan animal rescue farm for cows and pigs run by an heiress which is bankrolled by two arch-conservative prim Republicans. Best quirky touch in a YA I have had in a while.
bestdressedbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
There were upsides ans downsides to this book. My rating is more 3.5 stars. Although I flew through it because Jessica Verdi's writing style is very flowing and easy to read, and the story line had me interested. The actual story was a little predictable and too nearly wrapped up in the end. I didnt feel like the reactions where in line with the stories climatic events. But I enjoyed it none the less. Easy 4th book for day 3 of the contemporaryathon.
lazygal's review against another edition
2.0
Oh, I had such hopes for this book! Dara's life with her single mother, Mellie, is upended when Dara learns that Mellie was born male and transitioned (as well as fled, with infant Dara, from his/her in-laws, having left his family years before). Dara is, understandably, confused and interested in meeting her extended family... so she and BFF/boy-almost-next-door Sam head off to find her maternal grandparents.
So what went wrong? Mellie's story is told via email, which means far too much telling and far too little showing. The Dara/Sam relationship is so predictable it almost hurts. Also predictable? The conservative, anti-LGBTQ grandparents. And that Dara's new-found aunt is using her parent's Charleston home as an animal rescue operation (in other words, these conservative people do have a really good side! they're not all bad!) is just kitchen sinking. Had any one of those elements been different, this might have been stronger. Take away another element, stronger still.
ARC provided by publisher.
So what went wrong? Mellie's story is told via email, which means far too much telling and far too little showing. The Dara/Sam relationship is so predictable it almost hurts. Also predictable? The conservative, anti-LGBTQ grandparents. And that Dara's new-found aunt is using her parent's Charleston home as an animal rescue operation (in other words, these conservative people do have a really good side! they're not all bad!) is just kitchen sinking. Had any one of those elements been different, this might have been stronger. Take away another element, stronger still.
ARC provided by publisher.
lgiegerich's review against another edition
Yet again, NYC DOE picks a classroom library book without really knowing its contents. This book isn’t terrible, but if you want to have a book about the trans experience, why not choose one by an actual trans writer? I really liked If I was Your Girl, & that seems a much more authentic choice. Also the protagonist of this book is so immature & annoying- the worst kind of teen protagonist. I mostly just sort of hated her the entire time. Meh.
raineedayze's review against another edition
4.0
3.5*
Great trans rep. Really enjoyed it. Only issue is with the love story, as it felt a bit forced. Other than that, excellent book.
Great trans rep. Really enjoyed it. Only issue is with the love story, as it felt a bit forced. Other than that, excellent book.
sjlizzio's review against another edition
4.0
This book provided a heartwarming glimpse into the life of a transgender mother and her strained relationship with her daughter. The challenged portrait of this mother/daughter relationship gripped me throughout the story. It was enticing that the main character, Dara, had her own sub-plots besides her overarching path to her own identity discovery and coming to terms with her mother’s past.
And She Was is a great YA novel that brings the transgender experience to the forefront for cisgender people to understand more clearly. I highly recommend!
And She Was is a great YA novel that brings the transgender experience to the forefront for cisgender people to understand more clearly. I highly recommend!