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goosemixtapes's review against another edition
3.0
What if sometimes you feel like
you're pretending to be male but
you don't want to feel like
you're pretending to be female?
this book is not, as we say, "very good." but it IS a book that was important to me when i was fourteen and trapped in Gender Questioning Hell. so i'm glad it exists, and i hope it's offered that same little lifeline to other trans kids out there. that said, i'm also glad there are other trans YA books, not because this one is evil but because it's clumsy.
quick synopsis: this is a novel in verse about a high schooler named brendan, who is to the outside world a cishet guy and a wrestler, though he gets a lot of flack in the sport and at school for being unmasculine (which. honestly he isn't.). he's begun to feel increasingly uncomfortable in his body and yearns to transform into a girl; he's also terrified by this. our other two POV characters are vanessa, brendan's girlfriend who also wrestles, and angel, the trans woman brendan meets who helps him out on his questioning journey. also a quick personal synopsis: i read this reaching desperately for a lifeline when i was fourteen and terrified that i was trans, and i sort of imprinted on it and i've read it three times. so no one is more disappointed than i am to say that it's just kind of... eh.
(note: brendan uses that name throughout the book; pronouns aren't discussed at the end. i'm using he for him here because... that's what the book does.)
let me start with the poetry: it's not great. granted, i haven't got a lot of experience with the form, but i don't know why this book had to be in verse. there are some segments where it really works, especially to mimic the chaotic repetition of brendan's thoughts! but most of the time it's just regular fairly-bland YA writing, except
split up
like
t h i s
the other major problem with this book is that the supporting characters are weak. i love angel, i'm fond of her, but she's got about two major traits and they're "latina" and "trans woman." there's a dichotomy going on here where brendan is the neutral, stereotypical american teen--white, upper-middle-class, has a girlfriend, plays sports, thinks being trans would make him an "american degenerate"--and angel is the outsider, a mexican trans woman who has experienced sex work, abuse, assault during sex work, and disownment by her biological family. it verges on transgender pixie dream girl: angel, as someone from outside brendan's white-picket-fence bubble, is his branch to the world of marginalization. this could be done well, but it's really not in this case, considering that every single angel line is about being trans. i mean, i talk about being trans a lot, but goddamn, give her a hobby or something? (or at least quit the exaggerated latina-stereotype speech style; it makes me wince coming from a white middle-aged author.)
vanessa i do not love and am not fond of. in fact, i hate her pretty fervently. i get it: this book came out in 2013 (holy shit, it's been a decade!) and the cis world needed a cis POV character whose hand they could hold. but her POV is so wildly uninteresting compared to the other two, because it revolves near entirely around her relationship anxieties. there's something interesting gender-wise going on under the text here, because vanessa, while cis, is her school's only female wrestler, and thus feels pressured to act hyperfeminine off the mat because of familial messaging that she has to keep her boyfriend interested somehow. there's a lot there! like the fact that being gender-nonconforming =/= being trans, or the fact that brendan and vanessa are both punished socially for diverging from their assigned gender's roles, even though vanessa is cis. but this book skims over all of that in a few pages. vanessa's storyline is shallow, and it creates a weird situation where every POV switch is like:
ANGEL: so here's that time i got kicked out of my house and physically assaulted for being trans
BRENDAN: being in my own body digusts me i am desperate to look like a woman i can't live like this but i also can't tell the truth because no one will ever love me
VANESSA: omg what if brendan is cheating on me :(
also i just can't stand her. sorry for being a mean transsexual, but here's her response to
Spoiler
brendan telling her he might be trans somehow. note that this has CLEARLY been tearing him up for weeks, to the point where vanessa was afraid he might be seriously depressed.You know that feeling of falling
you sometimes get
when you're asleep?
Your whole body limp, heavy,
and you're tumbling off
a cliff and there's a thud
that makes you open your eyes?
Hearing your boyfriend
tell you he wants to be a girl
is the same sensation,
with no thud at the bottom to wake you up.
okay, she's in shock, i get that. she could be nicer about it, but this isn't AWFUL, it's just--
Then I'm madder than I've ever been.
Was he only pretending
to love me?
Was breakfast
in bed a lie?
Was sex with me
just a sick experiment?
...
If he knocks
on my window
tomorrow morning
I'm pushing him
out of the tree.
okay! fuck you, lmfao! as if it's a personal betrayal! again, i get it, cis people feel this way, but on top of the lack of substance to the rest of her plotline, all i could think was, "fucking shut up, bring me back to brendan and angel."
so why, then, did this book get me so bad when i was fourteen? well, because the portrayal of dysphoria and questioning really rang true to me then, and it still does. the terrified guilty yearning, the torment of wondering, the desperately searching google for answers, the watching people of the other gender wishing you had what they had, the dreams, the daydreams, the sheer relief of just getting a piece of clothing that makes your silhouette look right--here this book feels genuine.
now, i don't love the conclusion of this particular arc:
Spoiler
brendan tells angel that he doesn't hate being a guy, like, all the time, and she says, "oh, maybe you're gender fluid," and a lightbulb appears over his head and it's magically all fixed--okay, i'm being facetious, but even at fourteen this part felt like a letdown, because for me simply having the labels wasn't enough. i knew every gender label on tumblr in 2016, man, but that didn't mean i could self-apply. still, i can't say this is a blanket bad thing, because for some people, hearing the right label IS enough to make it instantly click. so i guess my other quibble here is that i'm not sure brendan's genderfluidity is built up enough, because to be frank, to me, he reads as a trans girl who's scared of being a trans girl. sure, maybe being a man isn't torture every day, and sure, maybe he doesn't want to wear high heels, but plenty of trans women don't want to wear high heels, and "this isn't torture" =/= "this is an identity i want to keep." that said, clark notes in the back of the book that a lot of brendan's journey was inspired by her genderfluid daughter, who supervised the drafting of the book, and i don't want to say that her daughter is wrong or reductive about identity labels. i just would have loved to see more exploration of genderfluidity as a concept, i guess.and yet i'm still giving this book three stars, instead of fewer, because i can't really bear to give it worse when i found it at exactly the moment i needed it. plus it's very readable; the pro of the unremarkable verse is that it goes down fast. i wouldn't pick this as your first trans book, or even your second or third, and oh wow 2013 really was ten years ago and it shows. that said--i still appreciate this one, man, no matter how much i (and trans YA) have grown up since.
literaryanna's review against another edition
5.0
I have to say, Freakboy is one of the most touching and thought-provoking books about LGBT issues I’ve ever read. Brendan Chase is a star wrestler, part of the popular crowd, has a beautiful girlfriend, and loves playing video games. But Brendan has a secret: Brendan aches to have pouty lips, luxuriously long hair, slender fingers, and a tiny waist. Brendan wishes he were a girl. But he doesn’t understand these feelings, because he also loves his girlfriend. Freakboy discusses the idea of gender fluidity – always feeling like a mix of male and female, moving in and out of the two, some days feeling more male, and feeling more female on others. Written from the perspectives of Brendan, Brendan’s girlfriend, and Angel – a transgender girl who becomes Brendan’s confidante and support system – Freakboy is startlingly honest and brilliantly written. This is the perfect novel for fans of John Green, Ellen Hopkins, and David Levithan.
mesy_mark's review against another edition
5.0
Brandon is a teenager in his final year of high school. He trying to make the science of things. Like why he rather be a girl than a boy. He and I will use him since he never requested female pronouns, likes girls those sexually. He just wants to be a girl and not nearly one that is overtly feminine.
ANgel is a Latina trans woman who works at a teen LGBT center. She holds he feminity with pride when though it cost her a lot in life
Vannesa is Brandon's girlfriend. And she is a tomboy by nature and now she worried that she is going to lose Brandon.
These three POVs are woven together to show how much identity affects everything one dose.
I like the style and what it was able to convey.
ANgel is a Latina trans woman who works at a teen LGBT center. She holds he feminity with pride when though it cost her a lot in life
Vannesa is Brandon's girlfriend. And she is a tomboy by nature and now she worried that she is going to lose Brandon.
These three POVs are woven together to show how much identity affects everything one dose.
I like the style and what it was able to convey.
weweresotired's review against another edition
3.0
See more reviews at The Best Books Ever!
Freakboy is a story is told in three alternating voices: Brendan, who is struggling with understanding his gender identity; his girlfriend Vanessa, who has essentially centered her entire world around her relationship; and Angel, a young trans woman who works at a LGBT youth center. The stories do intertwine, but our main focus is on Brendan and his journey of self-discovery, however. He's realizing that sometimes he identifies with the idea of being a woman, and the harder he tries to push away at these feelings, the more they surface. He loves Vanessa, he likes some "stereotypical" guy things, but he also fantasizes about having a woman's body. It's a difficult discovery for Brendan and he is understandably very confused once the realizations start coming and don't stop.
I really liked the fact that, in this book, nothing was simple. While the book does leave Brandon and his friends in a hopeful place, there is no easy, happily-ever-after ending, no cutesy "it gets better" message. Brendan has a whole new vocabulary - transgender, genderqueer, gender fluid - to explore, to see where he fits. Even as the book closes, while Brendan is closer to acceptance, his journey is still just beginning. While leaving the story on an open-ended note could be frustrating to some readers, I feel like the real important aspect to this story, and the part that many LGBT youth can identify with, is the struggle to accept yourself in the face of peers and society who does not accept you, and finding your own family and support system to live your life the best you can.
Like many other reviewers, I think this is a book that needed to be written, to help be a resource and to provide representation of gender variant kids in fiction. I sometimes felt like I wanted more from it, like I do with most stories in verse, but overall, it is a very powerful story that I hope gets the exposure it deserves.
As far as content, topics include bullying, underage drinking, depression, and suicidal thoughts, as well as some sexual situations. Freakboy is an important book and I don't think readership should be limited to LGBT kids; straight kids and allies and everyone in between can find something to relate to with the stories of Brendan, Vanessa, and Angel.
Freakboy is a story is told in three alternating voices: Brendan, who is struggling with understanding his gender identity; his girlfriend Vanessa, who has essentially centered her entire world around her relationship; and Angel, a young trans woman who works at a LGBT youth center. The stories do intertwine, but our main focus is on Brendan and his journey of self-discovery, however. He's realizing that sometimes he identifies with the idea of being a woman, and the harder he tries to push away at these feelings, the more they surface. He loves Vanessa, he likes some "stereotypical" guy things, but he also fantasizes about having a woman's body. It's a difficult discovery for Brendan and he is understandably very confused once the realizations start coming and don't stop.
I really liked the fact that, in this book, nothing was simple. While the book does leave Brandon and his friends in a hopeful place, there is no easy, happily-ever-after ending, no cutesy "it gets better" message. Brendan has a whole new vocabulary - transgender, genderqueer, gender fluid - to explore, to see where he fits. Even as the book closes, while Brendan is closer to acceptance, his journey is still just beginning. While leaving the story on an open-ended note could be frustrating to some readers, I feel like the real important aspect to this story, and the part that many LGBT youth can identify with, is the struggle to accept yourself in the face of peers and society who does not accept you, and finding your own family and support system to live your life the best you can.
Like many other reviewers, I think this is a book that needed to be written, to help be a resource and to provide representation of gender variant kids in fiction. I sometimes felt like I wanted more from it, like I do with most stories in verse, but overall, it is a very powerful story that I hope gets the exposure it deserves.
As far as content, topics include bullying, underage drinking, depression, and suicidal thoughts, as well as some sexual situations. Freakboy is an important book and I don't think readership should be limited to LGBT kids; straight kids and allies and everyone in between can find something to relate to with the stories of Brendan, Vanessa, and Angel.
abergland7's review against another edition
5.0
Not usually a fan of free verse poetry (at least I think that's how this would be defined), but the book was not bad and the format worked. It hit on some important topics but certainly did not go in depth with any of them. Overall it's a good book with likable characters.
smallhawk's review against another edition
4.0
It was good, I enjoyed it. I think I also discovered I just really don't like books in verse, but that's my problem and no reflection what-so-ever on the book or the author. It was a good read and I would certainly recommend it.
joyousreads132's review against another edition
4.0
This is a free verse novel about the startling reality of a boy who found himself lost inside his own body. Brendan Chase has a girlfriend, a star wrestler, and a teenager normal enough to heed the call of his rioting hormones. But nobody else knows the war his mind wages against his body. His fascination with the woman’s anatomy altered from curiosity to abject desire; a desire that had little to do with sex and more to do with the allure of having softer body, a curvier silhouette, and hair that falls like a curtain of silk. It’s not about an excuse to wear dresses; it’s about finally being comfortable in his own skin. Much like any coming of age novels, Freakboy shows the painful reality that sometimes, accepting one’s self could mean pitiable isolation.
On the periphery is his girlfriend Vanessa. She’d unconscionably given up her friends for Brendan, so when he gets into his moods, she feels isolated. But maybe if they have sex, they’ll bridge the gap that starting to widen as his depression gets worse and rampant? She doesn’t know his state of mind; he doesn’t share, and she’s afraid that when she finally gives it up, Brendan will lose his interest altogether.
Then there’s Angel; a transsexual who believes that no matter how difficult life was for her, she’s still lucky. She believes in paying it forward. So when she sees Brendan and saw the tell-tale signs of a boy on the wayward path, she offered what no one would at the time when she was headed in the same direction: friendship and understanding.
I’ve read many LGB books in my short life, but never books about T. Freakboy gave me an insight as to how much harder it is when you wake up every morning feeling like you want to peel the skin off of your own body to reveal who you exactly are. Brendan’s desperation to find himself was made palpable by Clark’s stark prose. It’s a pain in his chest that claws at the reader rather emphatically.
“Far beyond
feeling mean
at the thought
of making them guess
all I feel
is a forever
dull ache
that will
probably
exist
for as
long as
I do.”
You can feel the loneliness, and the abject terror that he’ll never figure out where he belongs. Unlucky for Vanessa, she got caught in a chaos of Brendan’s soul searching. While I didn’t agree with the way he strung her along, I can’t say that I would’ve done it any other way. The truth is, how do you tell your girlfriend you wanted to be a girl? Especially after you had sex with her? It was inevitable heartache all around.
All in all, I wished for a better ending. As much as I love the ambiguity of it all, I feel, it just wasn’t enough. This novel is relevant, and provocative. It offers hope that no matter how desperate you may think your situation is, somewhere out there, someone has it worse than you. But most importantly, you are only alone if you chose to be alone.
On the periphery is his girlfriend Vanessa. She’d unconscionably given up her friends for Brendan, so when he gets into his moods, she feels isolated. But maybe if they have sex, they’ll bridge the gap that starting to widen as his depression gets worse and rampant? She doesn’t know his state of mind; he doesn’t share, and she’s afraid that when she finally gives it up, Brendan will lose his interest altogether.
Then there’s Angel; a transsexual who believes that no matter how difficult life was for her, she’s still lucky. She believes in paying it forward. So when she sees Brendan and saw the tell-tale signs of a boy on the wayward path, she offered what no one would at the time when she was headed in the same direction: friendship and understanding.
I’ve read many LGB books in my short life, but never books about T. Freakboy gave me an insight as to how much harder it is when you wake up every morning feeling like you want to peel the skin off of your own body to reveal who you exactly are. Brendan’s desperation to find himself was made palpable by Clark’s stark prose. It’s a pain in his chest that claws at the reader rather emphatically.
“Far beyond
feeling mean
at the thought
of making them guess
all I feel
is a forever
dull ache
that will
probably
exist
for as
long as
I do.”
You can feel the loneliness, and the abject terror that he’ll never figure out where he belongs. Unlucky for Vanessa, she got caught in a chaos of Brendan’s soul searching. While I didn’t agree with the way he strung her along, I can’t say that I would’ve done it any other way. The truth is, how do you tell your girlfriend you wanted to be a girl? Especially after you had sex with her? It was inevitable heartache all around.
All in all, I wished for a better ending. As much as I love the ambiguity of it all, I feel, it just wasn’t enough. This novel is relevant, and provocative. It offers hope that no matter how desperate you may think your situation is, somewhere out there, someone has it worse than you. But most importantly, you are only alone if you chose to be alone.
greenvillemelissa's review against another edition
5.0
Book #95 Read in 2014
Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark (YA)
This is a young adult verse novel about a transgender teenager. Brendan feels that things are not right within his body. He feels drawn to a female identity. His girlfriend, Vanessa, knows that something is going on with him but he doesn't confide in her. Brendan meets Angel, a transgender young adult, and Angel begins to help him try to figure things out. This was a good, quick read. I borrowed this book from the public library.
http://melissasbookpicks.blogspot.com
Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark (YA)
This is a young adult verse novel about a transgender teenager. Brendan feels that things are not right within his body. He feels drawn to a female identity. His girlfriend, Vanessa, knows that something is going on with him but he doesn't confide in her. Brendan meets Angel, a transgender young adult, and Angel begins to help him try to figure things out. This was a good, quick read. I borrowed this book from the public library.
http://melissasbookpicks.blogspot.com
ruthelibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
"Freakboy" by Kristin Elizabeth Clark is a verse-style book about three characters dealing with trans in their own way.
Brendan doesn't know if he is a boy or a girl inside, and feels conflicted.
Vanessa is a girl by birth and identifies as a girl, but she is into boyish things.
Angel is a girl, but not by birth, and she works at a LGBTQ center.
Each of their perspectives does have their unique voice, and a unique type used in their chapters. The feelings the characters go through are very real and relatable. There is an overall plot and conflict, but the main drama is Brendan's inability to tell anyone how they really feel.
This is a great book that should be recommended to anyone who is trans or questioning their identity. I think even teens that are curious about the lives of trans people would enjoy this read. Fans of Ellen Hopkins will also enjoy this book due to its use of verse and gritty reality. While I do not like verse myself, I think it worked exceptionally well here.
Brendan doesn't know if he is a boy or a girl inside, and feels conflicted.
Vanessa is a girl by birth and identifies as a girl, but she is into boyish things.
Angel is a girl, but not by birth, and she works at a LGBTQ center.
Each of their perspectives does have their unique voice, and a unique type used in their chapters. The feelings the characters go through are very real and relatable. There is an overall plot and conflict, but the main drama is Brendan's inability to tell anyone how they really feel.
This is a great book that should be recommended to anyone who is trans or questioning their identity. I think even teens that are curious about the lives of trans people would enjoy this read. Fans of Ellen Hopkins will also enjoy this book due to its use of verse and gritty reality. While I do not like verse myself, I think it worked exceptionally well here.
booksandladders's review against another edition
5.0
Actual Rating: 4.5*
I really liked this one. It took the "issue" and transformed it into something other than that. It let readers look at someone who was coming to terms with what they were feeling and also see someone who was already there, already confident, already themselves. And I think it was great to do so. I would have liked a bit more exposition at the end about how having this knowledge and identity affected Brendan. But otherwise I really enjoyed it.
Read this as part of the #ReadProud Challenge.
Books and Ladders | Queen of the Bookshelves | Books Are My Fandom | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin'
I really liked this one. It took the "issue" and transformed it into something other than that. It let readers look at someone who was coming to terms with what they were feeling and also see someone who was already there, already confident, already themselves. And I think it was great to do so. I would have liked a bit more exposition at the end about how having this knowledge and identity affected Brendan. But otherwise I really enjoyed it.
Read this as part of the #ReadProud Challenge.
Books and Ladders | Queen of the Bookshelves | Books Are My Fandom | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin'