„If I was your girl“ hat einfach mein ganzes Herz. Das Buch handelt von Amanada, einer Transfrau, die nach schweren Zeiten zu ihrem Vater in eine andere Stadt zieht, um einen Neuanfang zu wagen. (auf deutsch könnt ihr das Buch unter „Als ich Amanda wurde“ finden, auch wenn ich den Titel sehr kontrovers finde) Da das Thema in meinem Leben eine große Rolle spielt, und es mein Wunsch wäre, dass es für die ganze Welt wichtiger wäre - habe ich etwas länger nach Büchern mit trans(weiblichen) Protagonisten gesucht. Dieses Buch landete dann auf meiner Wunschliste und ich bekam es vor 3 Tagen von meiner wunderschönen Verlobten. Erstens - es ist gut und flüssig geschrieben (auf Englisch habe ich es gelesen) und die Wortwahl ist packend gewählt. Ich finde es gut, dass die Geschichte einer Transfrau von einer Transfrau selbst geschrieben wurde, denn dadurch konnte es in einigen Bereichen realistischer durchleuchtet werden. Man möge denken, dass Amandas Leben trotz allen Struggles und Schwierigkeiten „einfacher“ und klischeebehafteter scheint als das anderer Transfrauen, doch dieses kleine Minus gleicht sich durch das Nachwort der Autorin aus und wurde im Q&A beschrieben. Zu Anfang empfand ich das Buch direkt als gut dargestellt, jedoch sehr triggernd und herzzerreißend. Es machte mich sofort süchtig und ich las das Buch als erstes nach langer Zeit schnell und interessiert durch. Trotz einiger Klischees oder „Privilegien“ wurden die Struggles von Trans* personen meinen Eindrücken nach realistisch dargestellt und viele, viele wichtige Dinge, auf die Außenstehende nur selten kommen, wurde beleuchtet. Die Romanze zwischen Grant und Amanda war für mich vielfältig, wunderschön aber auch fragwürdig. Das Buch wird dauerhaft im POV von Amanda erzählt, und springt von der Gegenwart zu Vergangenheitsereignissen. Besonders mochte ich die Zeitsprünge, die den Weg der Erkenntnis und der Transition aufklärten. Ich habe oft in anderen Rezensionen gelesen, dass das Buch sehr predictable sein solle, ich jedoch empfand es als unvorhersehbar und es gab viele, emotionale Twists. Ich LIEBE Amanda und ich liebe, wie dieses Buch mich auseinandergenommen hat, mich jede Emotion hat fühlen lassen und mich weinend aber auch lächelnd zurückgelassen hat. Stolz. Klar braucht es, um das Thema zu verstehen mehr, als dieses Buch, jedoch würde ich dieses Buch JEDER cis Person ans Herz legen, die sich mit diesem Thema nicht auskennt oder vielleicht sogar negativ dem Thema gegenübersteht, da ich denke, es kann gut die Augen öffnen. Aber auch Menschen, die in der Transition oder der Erkenntnis am Anfang stehen, würde ich dieses Buch ans Herz legen, da es neben den leider vielen, harten Punkten auch viel Kraft und Hoffnung geben kann. Ich mochte auch das Ende sehr gerne, da es viel Platz für Fantasie und Entscheidungen lässt. Vor allem das Nachwort hat einen wichtigen Wert und emotionalen Einfluss. Mit mehr Seiten hätte das Buch allerdings mehr Tiefe erreichen können, was zwar hart, aber wichtig gewesen wäre. Meredith Russo hat mit diesem Roman wirklich mein Herz - und es ist neben „The First to Die at The End“ jetzt wohl mein absolutes Favoritenbuch.

Let me say this up front: I don't like romance and YA romance is even worse for me. The book had several romance induced cringe moments and often left me shaking my head because I just don't think that 18yo boys will ever be this mature... ever. Other than that, I do think it's an important book especially for intended audience. A call for acceptance and compassion. Yes, it's sort of an "uncluttered" experience and certainly doesn't reflect the lives of most transgender teens or adults, but the author explains that in her note.

Please educate yourself about the author and if you really wanna read this book, please get it second hand. I read this book before finding out what the author is accused of and I do not support those actions. Anyway, it was a nice reading. Nothing amazing. The plot was kept simple and I like that! Sometimes it was a little too much but it was an overall great book!

This is exactly how it's done right. A young adult romance novel about a transgender girl written by a transgender woman featuring a transgender model on the cover. I absolutely loved Amanda’s story. Keep reading if you want to know why I loved this book so much. Now that If I was your Girl by Meredith Russo was finally released in Germany I kept seeing it basically everywhere. It’s been on my wishlist ever since I’ve heard about it months ago but now that I saw my German fellow book bloggers and bookstagramer keep bragging about it so much I couldn’t wait. I bought the audio book, well I got it for free actually because I signed up for a trial month on Audible and this comes with a free audio book of your choice, which was perfect because I’m currently on a book buying ban. So a couple of days ago I started listening to my very first real audio book (not counting the Ducktales, Benjamin the elephant audio books from my childhood though as they are more like radioplays and that’s a difference in my opinion) and I fell in love with it right the second I started listening. I’ve never expected to enjoy audio books that much to be honest. I’m all new to this and I was afraid I wouldn’t like it but since I’m not much of a music lover I thought why not listen to an audio book while at the gym or while in the car and although I thought it would maybe distract me too much while driving it didn’t distract me at all. It was the absolute best to relax a bit after a stressful day at work. I’ve read a couple of reviews from people who said they didn’t find it very emotional. I can’t second that. I found this one to be very emotional. Maybe there is a slight difference between reading the actual book and listening to the audio book because the narrator Samia Mounts did an absolute amazing job. Her voice fits Amanda so well and the way she stressed some of the words/dialogues made all the conversations seem so real - it was beyond amazing. AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER RIDE Is it weird to say that I kind of miss her voice? Listening to her read that book kind of made me feel like talking with an old friend on the phone. I still hear her voice inside my head and it feels like her voice really was Amanda’s voice and that she was telling me her story. I mean yes that’s probably how it is supposed to be but since this was my first actual and real audio book I had no idea what it would feel like to really listen to an audio book for six hours or more. One of my favorite things from this books are the flashbacks from Amanda's past; from her time of confusion, from when she was bullied by her "friends" and classmates .... they made me tear up so many times. It must have been so hard for her to keep that secret for so long, to feel so uncomfortable in her body. I loved how she got so much support from her counselor and I also think that her parents reactions where very interesting and honest, as one of her parents is better adjusting to Amanda's growth/change than the other one. I think If I had not read this book I would never have imagined a parent's experience in a situation similiar to Amanda's. It was at some point heartbreaking. It was obvious that her parents loved her so much, no matter what, but of course it wasn't easy to adjust to what Amanda kept telling them, that she rather wanted to be a girl than a boy. It's hard for a person who is not trans to understand what it must be like to be trans but this book really helped me to understand a few things. It was very imformative and valuable and I'm so glad that I finally picked it up. On that note, I'd really recommend you to read the authors note in the back or listen to it if you decided to buy the audio book because it includes some extremely important information as well as for trans people and cis readers. So make sure to not skip the authors note. The authors note made me almost more emotional though than the actual book. The book was very overwhelming; it focusses on so many important issues like acceptance, family and friendship. I absolutely loved Amanda. Despite that she has to deal with anxiety she is such a strong girl. It hasn't always been like that but she's developed so much in the past years it was so great to watch her grow over the years, to watch her change, fight and stand up for herself. This book also made me realize how cruel people can be. HEARTBREAKING AND REAL The characters are all drawn out very well. It was so interesting to see how a trans girl socializes in high school where absolutely no one knows her story. I loved to see all her friends/classmates reactions. Some of them made me want to vomit and throw things at them, some others made me cry because they made me feel so happy for Amanda. This whole book, even though it was heartbreaking at some points made my heart feel so full and warm. It's been days since I've finished listening to the audio book and I can't stop thinking about it. I absolutely enjoyed and adored Amanda's story so much. It's a fantastic novel I'd highly recommend to literally anyone, especially to those who are interested in a book that features a main trans character and of course to people who want to learn more about the life of a trans teenage girl. Amanda for sure is one of the strongest and bravest book characters I've ever came across. If you haven't read this book yet, you should - as soon as possible. BLOG: https://ivybooknerd.com

read my complete review here: http://isabellsbooks.blogspot.de/ MY OPINION ON IT WHAT I LIKED ABOUT IT This book managed to catch me right from the start because it is written in a way that makes it very easy to quickly dive into the story. I was very interested in reading about a trans character since I have never read a book with a main trans character before. The beautiful writing allowed me as a reader to have a deep connection with Amanda, the protagonist. I also read certain passages more times to fully grasp their meanings. As the reader I felt challenged to face my own prejudices and issues with trans people through this book: I reflected myself and found it interesting that I had some troubles with imagining Amanda in the flashbacks. She had always felt like a girl and therefore had always been a girl inside, but I struggled with how I imagined her physical appearance in the flashbacks in contrast to the present chapters. I think it is important to face these issues and be open for changing the own mind when reading about something that others know a lot more about than you yourself do. That's why I really wanted to get challenged by the book and dig deep in my own mind to sort out possible issues and prejudices I may still have concerning trans people. Dealing with what you don't know much about is always the better way than just rejecting it. Long story short, I really liked the book for helping me understand trans people and trans issues better. I really liked that the book didn't just focus on the main character and her love interest but also developed some other minor characters in the story. Amanda's new friend Bee seemed incredibly unique and interesting right from the start and when she admitted her "secret" to Amanda, I loved her even more. Although I also found it nice that Amanda had a group of other friends, I always cheered for the chapters in which Bee appeared. Amanda and Bee's conversations seemed to happen on such a different level and were quite deep sometimes. Their bond felt very special to me. The amount of queer people in this story was amazing: There are two trans characters and several others get mentioned and there are a lesbian and a bisexual character. If you get into a story only expecting the main character to be trans and then end up with all these rainbow guys ... - I was really happy about that. :) What I also found interesting was the depiction of strict religious characters and how they slightly collided with queer characters - I just have never read much about religious characters before and so that felt new to me. And it also was new to me to read about a very poor character. I found it good to get confronted with new character "lifestyles" because it is always important to expand the own horizon. I enjoyed that the chapters changed between present and flashback chapters. The flashbacks added much more depth to the story while the present chapters made the story move forwards. They played quite nicely together at first and also in the end. Broadly, this is actually not too different from any other Young Adult book: girl falls in love with a boy but struggles to open up about her tragic past to him and discovers midway that he also has some "secret" thing to deal with on his own. And I am actually quite done with the YA genre at the moment because it just seems to be the same plot every time. This book felt different though because her being trans did play a big role in the book which made it different and made the known plot feel fresher. And extremely insecure behaviour from the girl side, which was also the case in this book, didn't bother me that much because it felt very reasonable and realistic. I really loved the geeky references in this book, which mostly concerened STAR WARS. Since I am a huge STAR WARS fan myself, I just enjoyed that very much. I also liked how there weren't just references of the movies in the book but that the author managed to wove STAR WARS more importantly into the storyline. One scene in particular concerning that aspect gave the book a huge plus for me. There are two notes from the author, who is herself a trans woman, at the end of the book and these moved me so much. The author wrote two notes: one to her cisgender readers (cis = not trans, born in the right body) and one to her transgender readers. The end message, both from the book and from the notes of the author are so important and put the importance of accepting yourself clearly in the foreground. I found it important that that fact was highlighted more than the romance in the end. I also very much want to stress the father-daughter relationship in this novel. The story took its time with that and made it feel very raw and real therefore. The scenes between Amanda and her father were really beautifully written. WHAT I DID NOT LIKE ABOUT IT Unforunately, the flashback chapters fell flat in the middle of the book and made the book focus entirely on the present therefore. The present story felt quite light and like a typical YA romance and too flat without the flashbacks that added depth to it. I found that sad because that change had made the book so thrilling to me and the flashbacks had had quite an impact on me. So I wished the book would have continued the change between present and past chapter throughout the whole of it. The notes at the end made me realise that this story had been fictionalised in many ways and that it was the stereotypical trans story and lacked diversity. It's funny because I didn't even realise that while reading the story; but when the author said in her note to cisgendered readers that she had wanted to make it easier for cis people to bond with Amanda and therefore had made her a "perfect" trans, I felt disappointed. The fact that this book is written by a trans author and that that author had still felt the need to make her trans character fit as perfectly as possible into the white straight cis forms felt sad to me. I want to read a book about a more diverse trans character now. I don't want to get carefully introduced to the subject so that I might not be offended by it but I want to read about real trans people who deal with real issues. Since I am cis and not trans and since I don't know any trans person, I cannot say if this book has been a realistic portrayal of trans people in any way. Just the way in which the author herself admitted to having fictionalised the main character into acceptable forms made me yearn for a real depiction. In that way the author's note felt realer and rawer than the whole book before did feel then in retroperspective. It's a bit unfortunate that the author did sort of make the book worse for me with her note, but I think it is more important to know that this hasn't been a real depiction of trans people than to be ignorant to that aspect just to enjoy the story more. I was rather sad about the way in which the book turned a certain good character into a bad one. It hurt to see that character become so awful. The lovestory started to bother me a bit more in the end. I felt like what one character in the book said was true: that Amanda restriced herself to being boring just to meet her also boring love interest halfway. That perception made the lovestory feel a bit lame and just like every other to me. I was very glad that their were also other subjects in the story than just that lovestory. Although Amanda is already 18 and turns 19 in this story, I still felt like the lovestory was just another high school romance that would eventually fade away. It didn't seem as though Amanda had found her soulmate or something. I felt like that was rather the case with Bee, her friend. The book highlighted not often enough that that romance wasn't actually the most important thing in the story. Something that didn't bother me but that I just didn't understand was why Amanda even moved away from her mother and to her father. She hadn't spoken to her dad in years but seemed to have a loving relationship with her mother. So I didn't quite get that. Amanda also seemed to not care much about her mother throughout the whole book, which is why I was then surprised whenever a loving scene between these two came up. I assume that Amanda mostly wanted to get away from her old town but I felt like that reason wasn't stressed enough. CONCLUSION I really enjoyed reading this book. It was beautifully written and very easy to quickly read through. It forced me to reflect on my own perception of trans people, which I found important. The book never felt boring but always interesting, mostly because of the main character being trans. "If I Was Your Girl" helped to understand trans people and trans issues better. I would just like to read a book about a more diverse trans character than Amanda. And there could have been even more depth to the story if the book had kept its balance between present and past chapters, which it lost in the middle. MY RATING I award this book with 4 out of 5 stars.

Meredith Russo erzählt in “If I Was Your Girl” (dt. Als ich Amanda wurde) von den Ängsten und Problemen eines Transmädchen. Eine sehr wichtige Thematik und obwohl ich während dem Lesen sowohl vor Freude als auch vor Trauer geweint habe, habe ich mir mehr gewünscht. [T R I G G E R W A R N U N G: Transphobie, Gewalt, Suizid] Auf der Geburtsurkunde von Amanda steht “Andrew”, denn sie wurde mit einem Penis geboren und wurde dementsprechend wie ein Junge erzogen. Doch sie wusste bereits im sehr jungen Alter, dass sie kein Junge war. Nachdem Amanda sehr stark gemobbt wurde und auch versuchte sich das Leben zu nehmen, zieht sie zu ihrem Vater, um alles hinter sich zu lassen und ein neues Leben zu beginnen. Denn mittlerweile hat sie eine Hormonbehandlung durchgemacht und ist sehr feminin geworden. An der neuen Schule freundet sie sich mit einigen Mädchen an und verliebt sich sogar. Mit Grant erlebt sie ihre ersten Beziehungserfahrungen und sie fragt sich immer wieder, ob sie ihm genug vertrauen kann, um ihm alles über sich zu erzählen. Die Kapitel wechseln immer wieder zwischen der Gegenwart und Ausschnitte aus dem Leben, als Amanda noch Andrew genannt wurde. Die Kapitel, die von ihrer Vergangenheit erzählen, sind besonders interessant, weil sie stark auf die Ängste von Amanda eingehen. Insbesondere, als ich ihre Mobbingerfahrungen gelesen habe, hat es so weh getan und ich habe so mit ihr gelitten. Meredith Russo ist selbst eine Transfrau, wodurch sie Amanda sehr gut geschrieben hat und ich konnte mich sehr gut in sie hineinversetzen. Allerdings hat Amanda das genetische Lotto gewonnen und wird automatisch dem weiblichen Geschlecht zugewiesen. Russo erklärt zwar im Nachwort, dass sie Amanda ohne wirklichen Ecken oder Kanten gemacht hat, sodass es für cis-Leser einfacher ist sich in sie hineinzuversetzen, aber ich habe mir gewünscht auch darüber zu lesen, wie sie sich Sorgen macht aufgrund bspw. ihres etwas maskulinerem Gesichts, wie es bei der Figur Virginia der Fall ist. Außerdem ging mir vieles einfach zu schnell. Kaum ist sie an der neuen Schule verlieben sich zwei Typen in sie. Und nach wenigen Tagen lässt sie sich auf einen ein, obwohl sie eigentlich solche Angst hat, dass ihre Vergangenheit herauskommt. Vielleicht liegt es auch an mir, weil ich nicht an die Liebe auf den ersten Blick glaube. Sehr schön hingegen fand ich die Tochter-Mutter-Beziehung. Ich konnte die Fürsorge der Mutter regelrecht spüren und habe mich sehr für Amanda gefreut, dass sie so eine wundervolle Mutter hat. Selbstverständlich finden die Leute an der Schule heraus, dass Amanda eine Transfrau ist. Ich denke, das ist unausweichlich und sehe das deshalb nicht als Spoiler. Falls ihr das anders seht… tut mir das Leid. Auf der einen Seite war ich richtig wütend auf einige Reaktionen. Auf der anderen Seite ist mir richtig warm ums Herz geworden und lässt mich glauben, dass die Welt doch nicht so doof ist. Letztendlich denke ich aber, dass dem Buch einige Seiten mehr gutgetan hätten, sodass man dem Ganzen mehr Tiefe hätte geben können. Dennoch bin ich der Meinung, dass dies ein wichtiges Buch ist und empfehle es alles weiter, die sich etwas mit Transsexualität auseinandersetzen möchten.