A review by jwinchell
Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart

4.0

This is a beautifully written novel from the perspectives of Lily, transgender girl, and Dunkin, a boy with bipolar disorder. It's the story of their friendship and their not-friendship. Even if the ending is tidy (too tidy! where did the bullies go?), there's so much that is authentic: parents struggling with their kids' identities, a variety of losses, middle school drama and strife. The text structure threw me for a while and there has to be a literary term for this: alternating perspectives, but the next perspective doubles back on the scene previously described and then tugs the story ahead just a big; repeat. Recommended.