If I Was Your Girl Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
A new kind of bighearted audiobook about being seen for who you really are. Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she's determined not to get too close to anyone. But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can't help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda's terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it. Because the secret that Amanda's been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life and her new love? If I Was Your Girl is a universal story about feeling different - and a love story that everyone will root for.
Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 7 hours
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Audible.com Release Date: May 3, 2016
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English
ASIN: B01D3DI07A
Best Sellers Rank: #40 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Bullying #86 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Gay & Lesbian #499 in Books > Teens > Romance > Contemporary
The YA genre is becoming more and more interesting as important new voices begin to deal with previously-avoided issues of sexuality and gender identity. Meredith Russoâs âIf I Was Your Girlâ is the first non-memoir Iâve encountered that deals with the scary world of male-to-female transition at the high school level.Russo is very clear in her authorâs note that she has carefully chosen her situation to make her character Amandaâs âtrans-ness as unchallenging to normative assumptions as possible.â Andrew/Amanda self-identified as female from her earliest recollection. However, her father was unable to see anything but the âsissy boyâ, and reacted with a stereotypical determination to âtoughen him upâ. It didnât work, of course, and the inevitable result was conflict, not only with the child but with his wife as well, who while not as clueless as her husband, actually didnât have the ability to deal with the issues either.As the story begins, post-transition Amanda has been beaten up by the parent of one of her schoolmates in suburban Atlanta, where she and her mother have moved after the divorce. The only âsafeâ option seems to be for her to go live with her dad in âLambertvilleâ, a small town near Knoxville, TN. Her dad, who didnât know how to cope with her pre-teen male persona, is even more at sea when it comes to dealing with her as a late teenage daughter, but he tries.It is Amandaâs blessing to become part of a group of girls at her new high school who sincerely befriend her. Although on the surface they are a âmixed bagâ, Layla, Chloe and Anna turn out to be true blue. When Amanda is outed in a very vicious way, they are the ones who stand by her and even rescue her during another assault. Russo doesnât sugarcoat anything, and the novel doesnât exactly end with âhappily-ever-afterâ. However it is clear that Amanda does indeed have a hopeful future due to the support and understanding of these friends; the evolution in her parentsâ perspective to the extent that even her dad is learning to lighten up and replace control with support; and a boyfriend, Grant, who also has a quality of loyalty and fairness.Stylistically, I wish the narrative was not quite so heavy on âsouthern vernacularâ, but this is the authorâs authentic voice and is certainly valid for the locale and characters. The real antagonist in the story, Bee, is anachronistic in the setting, but her inclusion adds a thread of intensity that I believe is valuable to the narrative. I really liked this book.
This book is a revelation on so many levels. It is so well written that you forget you're reading. I'm an older reader, and I appreciated this book. Warning: you can't put it down!! Definitely not for Young Aults only!
Wonderful book. Aside from the awkwardness of an adult writing a child's perspective, when the main character wants to share a story they have written to their parents they waited patiently, when most their age would have blathered on about it immediately because children don't have a filter, and definitely don't notice if the driver of a car is being safe. They are relatively trusting at that age that their parents have got a handle on the whole driving thing.And that is seriously my one complaint and it takes up maybe a page of the entire story. Definitely read the notes at the end for cis and trans readers respectively if you feel that Amanda is unrealistic, the Author made that decision thoughtfully. I wish I could hand this book to people who don't see a trans person as someone with hopes, dreams, feelings, and sees them as something less than "real" because Amanda's thoughts and emotions are so detailed and real it would be hard to reject her as a person.
I love good YA. I love books that remind you so vividly what it was like to be a teenager. This book does that while also bringing you inside what it would be like to be a trans teenager. The topics that get thrown around as political fodder are made human, identifiable, emotional through the experiences of Amanda. I would be amazed any author could achieve this but I have followed Meredith Russo on Twitter for months now and I think she is incredibly smart and talented (and really funny - you should follow her). I cried (and cried - I think if I sat for a minute and thought about it I might cry again) because Amanda and her story are amazing but I cried hardest reading the author's note because unlike some tear jerkers the pain Amanda faces likely pales in comparison to what actual trans men and women face. And that is the power of a book written by an "own voice" I think. You should go buy this book, a box of tissues, clear a long afternoon and read it straight through.
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