Luna

Luna disrupted my expectations. I read it for class without having much background on it, and I thought that “transgender story” meant “from the point of view of a transgender person.” Not so. Luna is the story of Luna, a transgender girl (or “T-girl,” as Luna calls them), as told through the eyes of her younger sister, Regan. Luna is a coming out story, and arguably is not written for (or at least only for) transgender teens, but those struggling to understand them; using Regan as a lens to view Luna's transition makes it easier to understand for the outsider. It also gives the story many more dimensions, showing the struggles of Luna's family with her transition, and–unlike many stories whose narrator is not the focal point of a novel–it gives Regan a story and a life of her own. Luna isn't just a story about transness; it is a story about friendship, family, and first love, too, which makes it an altogether successful, wonderful book.
I had a hard time putting Luna down. Regan, the narrator, has a unique voice full of humor and cutting perception, with the rare quality of believable as the voice of a sixteen-year-old girl. All of the characters (perhaps with the exception of the archetypal love interest, Chris) are independent entities, dynamic and complex–especially Luna, whom it would have been so easy to reduce to just her transness. My heart ached for every one of them on some level. The story's ending is emotional and leaves plenty of loose ends, but sometimes that is more satisfying than having everything tied up neatly in a little gift basket of a book.