Book Review: grl2grl

Tales for Teens and Those Who Have Been

Julie Anne Peters’s novel Between Mom and Jo, about a boy whose moms are breaking up, won last year’s Lambda Literary Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category. In her latest work, grl2grl: short fictions (Little, Brown) she shows us her skill with a shorter form. The 10 stories explore early relationships and blossoming sexuality through a candid look at attraction (requited and not), queer identity, coming out as lesbian and transitioning as transgender, as well as darker topics like harassment and abuse. She pulls no punches, tracing the highs and lows of teenage emotions with an intensity heightened by the briefness of the tales.

On the face of it, the stories are aimed at LGBTQ teens. There is enough variety of characters and settings, though, that many people will find something familiar as they read through the book. There are athletes and musicians, good girls and outcasts, those who are comfortable with who they are, and those who are not. Most LGBTQ adults will remember our first time attending an LGBTQ event, as does Mariah in “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” while those of all orientations and identities will smile at the crush felt by the protagonist of “Outside/Inside.” The longings, jealousies, and heartbreaks of youthful relationships form a common human pattern.

Peters has a deft way with personalities. In “Passengers,” the protagonist Tam describes the genderqueer loner who intrigues her: “She sits alone. In Art, senior seminar, lunch, on the train. She always sits alone. If I was alone I’d find something to do. Read or work on homework or doodle, fake it, so if I was alone it’d look like I wanted to be alone. Not her.” The range of characters we meet is matched by the varied pace of the tales, from the heart-pounding rush of the basketball-themed “On the Floor,” to the calmer reflections and flashbacks of the musical “Two-Part Invention.”

Not all the stories are equally successful. Some readers, especially adults, might not like the Internet-chat style of “TIAD,” though Peters knows enough not use txt msg abbreviations throughout the story. “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” about a girl gathering the courage to walk into her first gay-straight alliance meeting, is well written, but I felt as if I’d read it before. Maybe it’s that I’d heard it before, from myself and friends, and to me the more interesting tales were the ones that showed me a new perspective. For a teen just coming out, however, “Can’t Stop” might change her world.

Most criticisms of the book, however, will likely revolve around which gender identities and sexual orientations Peters chose to include. Some might argue that Vince, the transgender boy character in “Boi,” would not appreciate being in a volume titled grl2grl. That may be true, but we should not judge Peters too harshly for this. She is also the author of Luna, a National Book Award Finalist about a transgender teen girl, and has since had readers ask her to tell a story about a trans boy. During a brief interview via email, she says of “Boi,” “There is underrepresentation of FTM teens in mainstream literature, but only, I believe, because we’re at the cusp of understanding and inclusion. It’s not so much that I ‘chose’ to write about an FTM character. More like Vince chose me. The voice rang true.” Her spectrum of characters is broad enough that it doesn’t seem out of place if she widens it to include a trans boy—in fact, that makes more sense than drawing a hard barrier. She even ventures into territory rarely seen, transgender parenting, when she has Vince tell us, “When I have a kid, I’m going to name it Jesse or Mel. Something ambiguous. Free-choosing.” It is refreshing to see trans parents simply taken as a given.

The stories do not, however, include any bisexual characters. “This collection began with many more stories than you see,” Peters explains. “I did have a couple of stories with bi characters, but they didn’t make the final cut during editorial. Trying to strike a thematic balance with the range of stories I would’ve liked to tell and the ages and stages of genderqueer teens was a challenge.” She adds, “Note to bisexuals: Will you please write authentic literature for teens?”

Others might fault the fact that transgender Vince has a drug-addict mother and becomes the victim of a hate crime — should this be the lone representation of a transgender person’s life? Likewise, some might worry that “Cold Stone Butch” perpetuates the myth that lesbians, especially butch ones, develop their identities because of past abuse or bad relationships with men. We should not assume Peters is talking about all transgender people, or all butch dykes, however, just as in “About Alex,” she is not saying all lesbian relationships have failure written across them. It is impossible to portray the innumerable variations of LGBTQ individuals in only 10 stories without tokenizing many of them. She has created engaging, sympathetic characters with true voices rather than straining to include “one of everything.” We should commend her for that—while also hoping she turns her talents to a future volume that captures further aspects of LGBTQ youth.

grl2grl is meant for young adults, but even those of an older generation will find the tales intriguing, evoking the unfiltered emotions of our earlier days. Mostly, though, it will leave us wishing we had books like this when we were younger.

(Originally published in Bay Windows, October 4, 2007.)

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