[Book Review] If I Was Your Girl

Title                     :               If I Was Your Girl

Author                 :               Meredith Russo

Publisher             :               Flatiron Books

Year                     :               2016     

ISBN                    :               978-1-250-07840-7

Rating                  :               3/5

Blurb                   :

Just because you have a past doesn’t mean you can’t have a future.

Review                 :

I spotted this book on my window-book-shopping at GI Jakarta. After all, this book not gimme a clue about what’s inside but the cover and the tittle catch my attention. Yeah, that’s the power of marketing.

And then, this book surprised me. Its about a teenage girl who used to be a boy. It’s a story about the
life of a transgender, her inner turmoil, her ups and downs of being different and had secret.

I was not disappointed, at all. The fact that the big theme was about transgender, something that not common in my country and something that really discord my religion, hooked me instead.

This was my very first time reading Russo’s writing and I love it. The way she described Amanda Hardy’s feeling and thought made me sympathy of her. Russo successfully put me in her shoes, even when I couldn’t relate with Amanda.

Amanda was hoping to start a new with a quiet life but suddenly she met Grant and fell in love. The good news that he had the same feeling with her. It was like a perfect story but Grant didn’t know who she was back then. She desperately want to say but she was scared.

“…I think I like you, but I’ll never have a normal life. I think you like me but you’ll never understand who I am.” Page 66

But Grant was so much a gentleman. I fell in love with him when he said,

“I’m a big boy. I been knocked down before, and I’ll be knocked down again. I can handle things that ain’t simple, and I can handle things that’re hard. I want you, and whatever it is about you that you think makes you so complicated couldn’t make me want you less.” Page 77-78

Not only the love story, but Amanda’s relationship with her parents were so beautifully written too. How her parents handle Amanda’s special condition, and how that effect on their daily interaction.

So much conversation with her parents stabbed me in the heart but this one was the best, and it was said by Amanda’s mom during the talk,

“It ain’t your responsibility to comfort your parents.” Page 187

For the rest, please read it your self :P

This book opened up my eyes about social phenomenon that exist but outta my reach, out of my sight. Things that happened around me but I underestimated them.

Russo showed me one more by Amanda’s friend, Bee. She was bisexual and she said something that just slapped me,

“…Everybody’s too afraid of going to hell or getting made fun of to be honest about what they want and who they are, so they cant even really admit what they want to themselves. Its sad.” Page 164

It doesn’t need to be transgender or bisexual to relate to that sentence.

After all, for being so closed about things like that, I was glad I found this novel.

Addiction Factors             :

1. The depth of the character building, make the reader can easily treasure the main character.

2. The power of the book to open hearts and change minds.

3. It had rare theme. Just one in a million.