Luna

Luna
Julie Anne Peters

Coming out is something that each individual has to go through, whether homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, heterosexual, or anything else. It’s just far more subtle when who you are inside happens to be the same as who people can see outside. For Luna, it’s not that easy.

Luna cover

Luna is transsexual teen who was born in a boy’s body, but wishes more than anything to live in the body where she belongs. She faces discrimination, bullying, and is misunderstood with her life under the magnifying glass of critical peers and a very conventional family. But at least she has her younger sister Regan to help her through.

Regan doesn’t just watch as her brother Liam morphs into her sister Luna at ungodly hours, prancing around in their shared basement in dresses and makeup. She keeps Luna’s secret, knowing it matters more than anything else possibly could. It’s a heavy burden that she describes as feeling like a suffocating jacket she can’t seem to take off. But she loves her sister, and it pains her to see Luna unhappy.

When Luna finally decides it’s time to tell their dad the truth about herself, Regan worries. Regan is always worrying about Luna; it’s as though her whole life has revolved around protecting her. Flashbacks tell bits of the story, little things that Regan remembers and now sees through a different light.

The entire story is told through Regan, which I felt was the best way it could’ve been told. The book doesn’t attempt to get deep into Luna’s mind—only as far as Luna allows Regan. (Also, it shows the truth of how sexuality is no longer a personal matter; it affects so many of the people who surround you). In this way, we understand just how complicated it really is, just how difficult it is to understand transsexuality, but also how difficult it is to be someone you just know you’re not. The trouble lies in who the rest of the world think you should be.

I’m still undecided—was it happy ending? With so much at stake, you’re bound to have to give something up.

Don’t you know, you’re the girl I always wanted to be.

My Heartbeat

My Heartbeat
Garret Freymann-Weyr

Ellen has been in love with James since the seventh grade. She loves her brother Link (James’s best friend) just as much. The three of them have a close-knit relationship, the boys sharing a special bond Ellen accepts she isn’t part of. Ellen has just started ninth grade at the school James and Link are about to graduate from. One of her new friends casually mentions that she thinks James and Link are a couple.

So Ellen wonders. Finally, she asks them, but still she doesn’t get a clear answer—because neither of them is sure.

My Heartbeat cover

As they each begin to understand further, an interesting point is brought up. James tells Ellen that she was their insurance. So long as she was around, they were safe—nothing that shouldn’t be happening would end up happening.

My Heartbeat is a story of fear and expectations, and what it means to really know someone. There are unwritten social laws yet to be understood, and a mind with a heartbeat yet to be formed. It’s a love triangle that you don’t even realize is there until you take a step back and stop to think. It’s a love triangle where each one truly loves the other two, and that, I think is something to be admired.

Together and apart, they deal with their own issues. From all sorts of rebellion, to music, to advanced math, running seven miles every morning, searching for happy endings, sketching strangers, and learning to see—to really see, the three of them develop subtly but beautifully.

James has experienced much more than either of the siblings, in terms of sex and life in general, and speaks with wisdom that he doesn’t acknowledge. Ellen and Link are both under the guidance of a pair of loving parents: a mother with the ability to understand what is unsaid, and a father who wants nothing more than for his children to develop their own minds (so long as they conform to certain boundaries).

There is no lack of love in this story.

In the words of one of the characters, a good book is a reflection of some kind of truth. This was a good book.