I Am J

January 31, 2011
J was born Jenifer but has never felt female. Now on the verge of 18, he wants to be "more than just a hovering brain without a body," and starts to transition to male. He binds his breasts; attends a school for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth; and starts therapy so he can be approved for testosterone injections. Change isn't easy: afraid of his father's rejection, J runs away temporarily, and is anxious that the girlfriend who "saw him as a man" will find out that he is "trans." Readers will learn a lot about transgender teens as J does online research, attends a support group, and gets advice from friends who have transitioned; adult author Beam (Transparent) also includes a four-page list of resources. It is J's authentic voice that keeps this challenging story from simply being a problem novel. J is sure of his masculinity, yet vulnerable and confused, and his thoughts often come out in a tangled rush. Readers should be absorbed by J's struggle to prove "My gender's not a lie. I am not a lie." Ages 15–up.

February 1, 2011

Finally, a book about a transgender teen that gives its central character a life in which gender and transition matter but do not define his existence! J lives with his Puerto Rican mother and Jewish father in Manhattan's working-class Washington Heights neighborhood but plans to go to college to study photography. He tries not to think about gender and covers his body in thick layers of clothing, but he still tenses up when his mother calls him "m'ija" or classmates call him "dyke." After a heated argument with his best friend, Melissa, and a nearly physical fight at school, J starts cutting class. A Google search leads him to the idea of taking testosterone, and J leaves home, certain that his parents will not accept his choices. In his new haunts, including a seedy hotel, a downtown Starbucks, a trans support group and a high school for LGBT students, J encounters a vibrant and diverse cast of characters. Responses to J's transition vary from affirming (his trans poet classmate Chanelle's support) to heartbreaking (his parents' resistance) to maddening (Melissa's attempt to make art with J as her "muse"). Readers will likely come away agreeing with J: "Being trans wasn't special, and yet it was. It was just good and bad and interesting and fucked-up and very human, like anything else." (Fiction. 14 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-When J reached adolescence, he quit the swim team and began covering his body with extra clothes to hide the fact that he had been born a girl. At 17, J dreams of being accepted as a boy, binding his breasts and despising his monthly periods. His close friend, Melissa, a cutter, tries her best to understand and support him. His parents are confused, angry, and sad. He runs away from home and enrolls in a special school for gay and transgender teens, where he makes a helpful friend, a transgender girl. He also embarks on a shaky romance with Blue, a straight female artist who believes J is a boy and to whom he must eventually confess the truth. When he learns about testosterone and how it can help with his transformation, he is overjoyed, despite the obstacles he faces in getting the drug legally. Finally, J turns 18 and is able to begin getting his shots. He applies to and is accepted at college to study photography as a transgender young man, and holds out hope that one day his parents will accept him as well. Beam is the author of the informative adult book, Transparent: Love, Family and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers (Houghton, 2007). This novel is just as impressive. J is an especially vivid character, and the supporting characters are carefully drawn. Told in third person, the story is believable and effective due to insightful situations, realistic language, and convincing dialogue. Readers who relished Julie Anne Peters's Luna (Little, Brown, 2004) will snap it up.-Diane P. Tuccillo, Poudre River Public Library District, Fort Collins, CO

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2010
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Who is J? Though born a girl, he has known since early childhood that he is really a boy. But how to explain that to his parents, who simply consider him to be a lesbian, or to his best friend, Melissa, whom he loves but who rejects him angrily when he kisses her since she, too, regards him as a girl? Small wonder he is self-hating and angry and determined to mask the female part of his identity. But finally, sick of wearing bandages and multiple layers of baggy clothing to hide his body, he decides to take testosterone so hell look and sound more male. But he is only 17 and needs parental consent to do this. What to do? The solutionslike his lifeare complicated and difficult. But desperate determination and the faithfulness of friends may help him to find himself and the acceptance of others. Beam has written easily the best book to date about the complicated condition of being a transsexual teen, not only sharing important information that is artfully woven into the plot but also creating, in J, a multilayered, absolutely believable character whose pain readers will share. Perhaps most importantly, the author brings clarity and charity to a state of being that has too long been misunderstood, ignored, and deplored.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2011
"When J was a really little kid, he had been surprised whenever anyone thought he was a girl; the world seemed confused and backward to him." Now, at seventeen, the painful collision between J's inner view of himself as a guy and the perception of everyone else has become unbearable. J feels the "other world...slamming him" again and again: when a neighbor calls him by his given name, Jeni; while getting dressed, trying not to see the offending breasts as he binds and covers them in layers of oversized clothing. J's mother assumes he's a lesbian; his father doesn't know how to talk to him. In love with his best friend Melissa for years, J suffers through all her crushes. When he finally kisses her, Melissa is completely freaked out and J loses his sole comfort, propelling him to take bold steps toward claiming his identity. The author draws on research from her nonfiction book Transparent, and indeed the novel contains a great deal of information and advice from the supportive friends and teachers J eventually meets. Yet J's personal frustrations and desires are strongly conveyed, pulling readers into the internal narrative, which includes several exciting firsts: romance, guy friends, a show of his photography. One of only a few YA titles available on the subject, the book is a gift to transgender teens and an affecting story of self-discovery for all readers. lauren adams

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)