I realize, again, that it's been awhile since I've posted. But my two loyal readers will forgive me, I'm sure. ;)
On to the book review! Not a moment to waste, because you all need to stay far, far away from this book.
Yes, this book was rotten. Here's the general premise: Jill seems like a normal teenage girl (rolling your eyes yet?) but she is far from it! Every month for four days, she becomes Jack, complete with the change in anatomy. To keep this secret from everyone else in her life, Jill and her mom pretend that she has monthly blood transfusions that keep her from attending school. Jill also does meditation to banish all thoughts, memories and feelings from Jack's cycle from her mind completely. "I am all girl" is her mantra. Jack is therefore confined to his room for the duration of his cycle, lest all hell break loose.
OK, I'm going to pause here and admit that yes, this is a deeply intriguing story line with a TON of awesome LGBTQQI potential. I mean, why else would I have even checked it out from the library? Back to the story:
With prom coming up, Jill and her best friend Ramie need to find her the perfect date, and keep Jack from ruining everything! So they pick their target (a cute exchange student named Tommy) and lay their plans.
By the way, the plans they come up with are completely... asinine. Jill tries acting like the rich, snobby girl to get his attention (which backfires, thank [Diety of choice]). She tutors him in calculus, etc, etc, ad nauseous. He's into her, which is great! The only problem is (dramatic music, anyone?) .... he's Bi! So Jill has to grieve a little because of that. Because gay people make her ill. (Have I mentioned yet that this is set in Massachusetts?) Then Jack comments on it and says that, yeah, those gay guys make him sick too... and the Mom might be right: Bisexuality is just like a pit-stop on the way to full blown gayness (no awkwardly sexual pun intended).
So this is obviously a problematic thing for our community. Let's face it - the first people to pick up this book are probably trans, genderqueer or questioning. Alienating your target audience is probably not the wisest thing to do, even halfway through your book. In addition to that, reinforcing ridiculous gender stereotypes that most people don't identify with will probably not get you very far, either.
But, everything works out! Because Jill is able to swallow her disgust with Bisexuality to get to second base with this guy! Unfortunately for them, Jack ruins everything with his "boy" feelings, which invade Jill at just the wrong time. Can I just say that this is the perfect kind of situation to bring up trans issues or symbolism? Even LGB issues. I mean, come ON!
Around this point, Jack decides to sneak out during his cycle and visit Ramie's bedroom window (yeah, creepy much?) since the porn Jill's been getting for him hasn't been enough to quench his lust for her best friend. Since that's all he's been doing for the last three years... sitting in his room alone masturbating. So Jack and Ramie have a sensual affair at the end of his cycle, and basically fall in love. How cute, right? Too bad he's gone for a month.
Here's the big twist, are you ready? Jill's meditation hasn't been working so great, so some of Jack's feelings have been "leaking" into her awareness, as I've already alluded. She finds out that he snuck out to see Ramie, accidentally KISSES Ramie (horror of horrors) because of Jack's icky boy feelings and tells her mom everything. Mom gets Jill out of school for the rest of the year, because obviously she can't go back now. They barricade Jack's room (complete with prison bar windows) so when the next cycle comes around, he'll be fully contained.
This kind of backwards feministic symbolism really troubled me. I haven't mentioned how Jill's dad basically lives in the basement and everyone treats him like shit because he has all these new age ideas - which spawned Jill's meditation, but apparently that doesn't matter. But the way the men are treated in this book is really hideous - especially the emphasis on being a "pure" boy or girl.
I'm getting really sick of thinking about this book, so for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to briefly paraphrase the rest of the book and quickly analyze why it's important to know how bad this book really is for our community.
In the end, Jack's cycle falls on proms night, he has sex with Ramie (who guesses that he's also Jill) because dad helps him sneak out of the disgustingly sadistic prison mom set up for him. Mom finds out he's gone and goes ballistic (seriously more bat-shit crazy than she already was). Jack changes back to Jill in the middle of prom (OH NO!) and then Jill gets to have a nice little heart-to-heart with Ramie and Tommy and that's how it ends.
OK. So you may have noticed there's a lot of sex in this book. I skimmed over some of it. You'll thank me. Anyway, guess how many times birth control/safe sex/protection is brought up? Zero. Yes, this is exactly what we need to teach our teenagers, right? Sex is great, and good and blah blah blah... and no talk of consequences or anything. This is definitely the problem and not the solution. LGBT or straight or... whatever - I don't care where you fall on any spectrum, safe sex is arguably the most important thing we need to be teaching younger generations. This isn't even my biggest beef with the book!
The big reason I was so disappointed with this book is that it had such potential. It could have challenged gender norms, it could've been a life changing book for trans* and genderqueer teens everywhere, and it could've normalized otherwise out-of-the-norm sexualities. All it did was re-emphasize the differences between male and female and focus on the separation of these two entities. While doing that, it completely degraded men and women by forcing them into ridiculous stereotypes and giving them no personality. Except for Ramie. She must have filled the personality quota for the entire book. Other than Ramie though, you're a product of your gender. At least, that's the only message I could get from this book. No "it's OK to be different," or "stay true to yourself" morals to be found here, folks. The only redeeming thing about the end of the book was 1) that it was the end and 2) Jill finally realizes that telling the truth will set you free.
If you made it this far, you deserve a Purple Heart. Thanks for enduring my rant about bad representations of our already marginalized community. Leave your thoughts in the comments, and send any suggestions for good or interesting reads on to me. Even if they're bad books, I'm convinced that if I can get through this book, I can read just about anything.
