New from Renaissance Press
What if being gender fluid wasn’t just a feeling? What if your whole body changed day by day? That’s the central question in this compelling young adult novel by this Calgary writing team, newly out from Renaissance Press.
Mike has been changing genders, full body, for years. It wasn’t
much of a problem when he was a kid - lots of kids look fairly
androgynous - but come adolescence, and especially gym class, things get a
lot more complicated. We join him on one of those days.
Adding to the complexity is that this book extends Alberta‘s, and
the USA’s, anti-trans panic and legislative bias to the point where it is not
safe for his entire family if he's caught out in public while he’s in
girl form. His parents have already lost their jobs and fled one home in
the States because of his changes. He doesn’t want that to happen
again. But increasingly his feminine alter is demanding her own clothing, refusing to go back into the closet he's tricked her into for the past decade, and even, accidentally, getting a
part-time job while in girl form.
Meanwhile, in Mike’s high school friend group, the secrets are
starting to crack at the seams too. There’s a very tense plot around his
friends that also embodies the “anti-difference” theme. And some
threats.
This is a competently handled coming out story with an alternate
reality twist. And it’s a tense, high stakes episode in a long-running war
against fascist wizard clans.The writing is crisp and confident, an
effective blend of interiority and dialogue/action/text messages. All
the usual hallmarks of high school novels are present: worry about
grades, worry about friends and one’s place in the pecking order about
attraction growing from friendship to something more. And all of it is
masterfully overlaid with needing to meld
tech and magic into plans that would not be out of place in a Mission Impossible movie or the Alex Ryder streaming series. Assuming either one was ever set in Banff National Park,
or in the illustrious Banff Springs hotel. (true confession: I live fairly near Banff and the settings were all quite familiar to me. Except the rooftop of the massive 1928 hotel)
I really appreciate the emphasis on building communities of trust, and on not
judging people by whatever they need to do to cope with their own unique
traumas. Those are prosocial lessons that all of us need reinforced.
Adriaan Brae has 3 novels and several short stories available
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