Review: I AM J by Cris Beam

March 13, 2011

I Am J
Author: Cris Beam
Publisher: Little, Brown
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9780316053617
Publication date: 1 March 2011
Review book source: review copy I requested from the publisher

Summary
From the publisher: J always felt different. He was certain that eventually everyone would understand who he really was: a boy mistakenly born as a girl. Yet as he grew up, his body began to betray him; eventually J stopped praying to wake up a “real boy” and started covering up his body, keeping himself invisible–from his family, from his friends… from the world. But after being deserted by the best friend he thought would always be by his side, J decides that he’s done hiding–it’s time to be who he really is. And this time he is determined not to give up, no matter the cost.

My thoughts
Let’s talk about the writing and structure of this story first and then we’ll get to the content. One of the most striking things in the telling of J’s story is that because it’s written in the third person, the reader really feels the disconnect when J is referred to as a girl. We hear “he ambled down the street” and “she cast him a glance”–and then suddenly, jarringly this “he” and “him” is Jenifer or is a daughter or a she. With this third-person narration, there’s never a question about what gender J really is: it’s as obvious to the reader as it is to J that he’s a boy and always has been.

While I Am J does feel like a throwback to the problem novel sometimes, with certain scenes feeling a little heavy-handed (especially when J remembers going to the boardwalk with his dad as a child and encountering transkids, whom his father finds repulsive), J’s interest in photography and his plans for college late in the book helped mitigate this to some extent. The book is still about the struggles J faces in starting his physical transition and finding acceptance among friends and family, but he’s a whole person within that narrative. Secondary characters are also often multifaceted, or at least have distinct personality traits to make them more than just stock characters. That being said, J’s best friend Melissa is a dancer and a cutter, and her cutting was occasionally a distraction from what was going on with J; it felt at times as if there were just too many things rolled up in this story.

The only other thing that irked me was that when J decides to run away from home, it felt a little like a privileged kid experimenting with what life would be like if he had real problems. There was nothing that was really driving him away from home at that point. Later, though, his mother insists he continue staying with Melissa and her mom long past the date she’d originally suggested as a cooling off period for their family, and later still J feels betrayed when he finds out that it’s his mom who doesn’t want him coming home, not his father like she’s been saying. Those scenes of rejection and separation felt more real than J’s initial motivation in running away.

So now we can get to the content. Whenever someone writes about a character from a minority group or a disadvantaged segment of the population, I think we need to raise the question of authenticity. Beam addresses this in the afterword: while she herself is not transgender, she has a trans foster daughter, and her partner also defies the gender binary–and she’s made a career in working with the trans community. She acknowledges:

Of course, it’s scary to take an imaginative leap and write a character who is not you. I have known and loved several people who are like J, but J is not me. I’m not of trans experience, and I know what tricky territory this is, partly because there are still not enough published works by transgender authors, proclaiming their lived experience.

We still desperately need transpeople to tell their own story, but until then, I Am J helps fill the enormous gap in stories on transkids in YA lit.

I Am J not only tells one transkid’s story, but also tackles and hints at other issues around the trans community and the process of transition. Medical consent is a problem at first for J when he wants to start taking testosterone. Not everyone at his GLBT high school is supportive of one another or of each segment of the queer community. J himself is a little homophobic at the start of the story, although he grows out of that by the end. A couple different straight characters at first think J is intersex when he tells them he’s transgender (and then he’s forced to explain the difference). Different characters have different opinions on whether one should out him or herself as trans when beginning a new relationship. J’s family and friends–new and old–react very differently to his coming out and his physical transition. Through these scenes and discussions, the reader gets to see a detailed picture of the trans experience.

I especially liked that I Am J gives readers a picture of the trans community. Parrotfish kind of falls short in comparison here, since Grady is defining himself entirely on his own with no real precedent or support group of other transpeople. At some point (I can’t remember this exactly), I think the gym teacher says something like, “We had another transkid a few years ago…” but there’s no sense of connection to that person who came before. J gets to tap into a community, and being able to see different people and stories and histories through his eyes, we get a fuller picture of what it can mean to be transgender. I Am J also explores the physical transition with testosterone injections and not just modifying one’s dress and appearance to pass, something Parrotfish also doesn’t really do. (I haven’t read Luna, so I can’t compare it to I Am J–and I think that these three books are just about all YA lit has to offer right now when it comes to trans characters.)

And finally, I really liked that J isn’t just trans–he’s also Puerto Rican and Jewish. At YALSA’s YA Lit Symposium, one of the points that kept coming up (for example, during the talk on disability in YA lit) is that people want to read “and” books: books about kids who are black AND gay, or disabled AND poor. I Am J offers that, and I’m glad.

In short, I Am J is excellent addition to the too-slowly growing number of titles about trans kids that explores new territory in new ways. 4/5.

Bonus: Cris Beam’s nonfiction book Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers was a Stonewall Honor Book and the 2008 winner of the Lambda Literary Award for best transgender book.

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Tags: 4 star, cris beam, diversity, reviews, ya lit