Parrotfish

First of all, I am glad that there was a book with a transgender character in it to choose from. Being transgender myself, it is nice to be able to see our narratives in young adult literature--an audience that really needs to see novels like these. That being said, it was clear to me that the author of the novel was not transgender herself. While she clearly did research, I felt like she was still lacking a lot of insight into the transgender experience. Also, this is just a pet peeve of mine, it is not "transgendered" it is "transgender". Saying someone is transgendered is like saying someone is blacked, or gayed: it just isn't correct.

All that aside, I thought that this novel has been an interesting read to the halfway point. Grady is a likable character that is clearly dealing with a lot. The text really addresses authenticity--being who you really are in the face of adversity. You can see a positive, yet difficult to deal with, example in Grady who is trying to be himself no matter the cost. Then there are characters like Eve, who are really trying to be someone that they are not. As far as stereotypes go, I am glad that this book centers around a trans-masculine character as the trans-masculine experience is usually forgotten about. It positions Grady as a fairly masculine individual though, which is kind of a stereotype for trans people. I would have liked it more if Grady had some femininity that he had in his personality that would help show the impact of his social upbringing--something that I know affects many trans people, including myself. It also would have been nice to see Grady have some gradient in his sexuality, instead of being straight.

I think that this novel portrays young adults in a slightly drastic, yet fairly realistic way. The kids at Grady's school are absolutely awful, but there are some gems among the muck as well, such as Sebastian. Grady is shown as essentially fearless in his resolve to be himself, which I actually found a bit unrealistic. In light of everything that he is facing, I would expect there to be a bit more anxiety around going to school. That being said, everyone's transition is very subjective and personal; I can not say that Grady's response to everything is not normal, because there is no "normal" when it comes to this. It's just one person's experiences. I think that this text would appeal to young adults because it deals with an experience a lot of students have little exposure to.

Overall, I would have to give this book a B+ so far. It is nice seeing a transgender character, but it is also clear that a bit more research would have helped this book a lot. I still think that it is informing people on the transgender experience in some way though, and for that I think it is an excellent book. A much, much better trans YA lit book, however, would be "Almost Perfect" by Brian Katcher.

Brown Girl Dreaming

I thought that this novel, in particular, was very interesting to read because it was biographical (or at least written to sound like it was), yet it was written in prose/a poetic manner. Dealing with growing up during the Civil Rights movement, Brown Girl Dreaming details the struggles faced by the author. The development of characters are a bit slow in this book--a possible reason for this being that the author takes you through the life of a small child, describing an America being torn at its old and bigoted seams and thrust into an era of White America dealing with the increasing, albeit slowly, equality of Black Americans. The themes of race are extremely prevalent throughout the novel. This novel does a wonderful job of giving the reader insight to an America most, if not all, of us weren't alive to see; it does this in a way that is accessible, and the narrator in the novel seems to be for the most part just a bystander describing the scenery they are experiencing in prose.

I believe that this text positions young adults in such a way that they seem incredibly human. The narrator gives us vivid details on what it is like growing up in a segregated, and then non segregated, America. This is seen when the narrator describes the signs that say "whites only" as ghosts because they are painted over, but only just barely--just enough to cover the words, but not enough to swallow them into history. I would say that young adults in this novel are absolutely not portrayed stereo-typically. I would say that, if anything, the characters in this novel are very realistic--probably because they are real people. That is part of the excellence of this book: it provides you with the lives of not just characters, but real people that experienced and suffered through this time period. This text would appeal to young adults because it shows them what it was like for a person of color to grow up in this racially charged time period. It would also be kind of hard to get the students into the novel because it is written in prose/a poetic manner. It would be something that they would have to be eased into I think, just because they probably are not used to a book being written in this kind of manner.

Overall, I would give this book an A-. I think it is a wonderful book and it deals with a topic that I need to become more educated on, but I think that is has some accessibility issues because of the way that it is written. My qualms are not with the content of the novel, but with the way that is written. That is not to say that I don't like the way it is written, just that it is a bit different than what I, and others I'm sure, are used to reading. I would think this would be slightly difficult to teach to secondary students for this reason alone.

Unwind

Unwind is a very engaging, thrilling, and exciting novel to read. So far, I think that the most interesting part of Unwind is the setting it takes place in: A dystopian world where children can be retroactively aborted between the ages of 13-18 by a process known as "unwinding", where the child still lives--just in a "divided state". I think it is honestly a bit odd, the whole pro-life and pro-choice war stuff, but it really makes for an exciting setting. I like the characters in the novel so far as well, especially Conner. There is just something about Conner that makes him do stupid shit; he routinely short-circuits his brain and decides to do something like "save" the tithe, Lev, or take on a storked baby while the police are watching to see if Conner and crew get on a bus. I think that this text tries to position genders as pretty equal--Rissa is an extremely quick witted individual who is absolutely necessary for the success of the group.

I think that this text positions adolescents in a very strong position. After all, you have to be strong when the whole world is out to get you. Unwinding someone seems like a very unpleasant thing to do and at least some of the characters will stop at nothing to be able to stop themselves from ending up unwound. This text may even position adolescents in a stronger way than they actually are in reality. The events that these young adults go through are staggering, and it seems as though luck is the only reason that they are able to get by sometimes. This extra strong positioning likely has something to do with the fact that the novel is a dystopian text as well.

Overall, I absolutely love this book. I think that it is my favorite book that we have read this semester and I can't wait to finish the book. I would absolutely give this book a rating of A+. I honestly don't know how I have never heard of this book before, because it is such an incredible book. I think that while the idea for the plot is weird, it manages to manifest itself in such a way that it is extremely exciting to read about. It reminds me a lot of the movie "The Island", where there are a bunch of clones of people that are living on this island only so that they can be harvested for organs when their genetic counter-parts succumb to disease or injury. I would very much be interested in reading more novels like this, and I think that you should include more dystopian texts like this into your curriculum, and not books like Feed, because Feed was lame.

Feed

This is by far one of the most interesting books that we have read this semester, as it completely invents its own slang throughout the novel. For this reason as well, it becomes hard to read in points because of language that the reader is not so used to. Having only read part of the novel, I thought it was interesting the way that some of the characters developed. The author seems to have a habit of introducing the names of important characters at a later point in time than most other authors generally do. While it is a futuristic novel, there are some gender stereotypes that seem to still exist, such as guys being interested in football. I also think that the novel could be commenting on humans’ dependency on technology through the device of the “Feed”.  I thought it was very interesting that everyone seems to have a bunch of lesions on them that are just pretty much normal. It was not something that I was expecting from the novel, even if it is a futuristic type of novel. I also thought it was interesting because it is probably the only sci-fi young adult novel that I have ever read, or heard of.  I think that it would be interesting to compare this specific novel with another sci-fi young adult novel and determine what the similarities between the two are. I also found it very interesting that the moon was a rather simple destination to travel to for the characters, and I was especially intrigued by how run down some of the places were in the text. I just thought that in a futuristic novel that some of the areas would be in better shape, but this book had a dystopian feel to it because of these factors in the novel as well.

I think that this text positions adolescents in a way that is difficult to discern at times due to the language being used in the book and how different it is from our own society and reality. Despite this, however, I think that the novel does positions young adults as sort of stereotypically teenagers, with their focus on a lot of the things that teenagers are focused on (i.e. girls, etc.). From what I have read, I would say that they are neither portrayed as weak or strong, but rather just human. I think it is everyone’s dependency on technology that stands out the most to me throughout the duration of the novel.

Having only read part of the novel, I would give this book a B. It is indeed an interesting read, but because of the vernacular used throughout the text, it actually becomes a bit of a difficult read. I did enjoy reading a sci-fi young adult text though, as it is something that I am very much not used to in any sort of capacity.