If I Was Your Girl - by Meredith Russo (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Meredith Russo's award-winning, big-hearted novel If I Was Your Girl is about being seen for who you really are, with a love story you can't help but root for!

Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she's determined not to get too close to anyone.

But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can't help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda's terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it.

Because the secret that Amanda's been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life, and her new love?

Stonewall Book Award Winner
Walter Dean Myers Honor Book for Outstanding Children's Literature
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist
A Zoella Book Club Selection
A Bustle Best YA Book of the Year
IndieNext Top 10
One of Flavorwire's 50 Books Every Modern Teenager Should Read

Review Quotes

Stonewall Book Award Winner
Walter Dean Myers Honor Book for Outstanding Children's Literature
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A Zoella Book Club Selection
A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist
A Bustle Best YA Book of the Year
IndieNext Top 10 List
One of Flavorwire's 50 Books Every Modern Teenager Should Read

"This new novel for teens breaks new ground...powerful." --O Magazine

"A beautifully rendered YA novel . . . the first written by a transgender woman about the transgender teen experience." --San Francisco Chronicle

"A vivid, compassionate portrait of a teen finding her place." --The Washington Post

"An illuminating debut guided by hope and overwhelming kindness." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A necessary, universal story about feeling different and enduring prejudices...full of love, hope, and truth." --Kirkus, starred review

"This is everything a coming-of-age novel should be--honest, complicated, and meaningful. Transcends the typical 'issue' novel to be a beautiful tale in its own right." --School Library Journal, SLJ Popular Pick

"Amanda's story is neither overly sentimental nor didactic. A thoughtful, truthful, and much needed coming-of-age tale." --Horn Book Review

"Russo, a trans woman, writes with authority and empathy, giving readers not only an intellectual but also an emotional understanding of Amanda and her compelling story. Never didactic, this debut is a valuable contribution to the slender but growing body of literature of trans teens." --ALA Booklist

"Beautiful, smart, and so urgently needed, If I Was Your Girl should be required reading for every teen--scratch that, every person--in America. This book is exactly what YA is for: to break ground, to break hearts, to teach us empathy, to find the universal in the specific. I loved every word. You will too." --Julie Buxbaum, author of Tell Me Three Things

"Poignant and rare. If I Was Your Girl is the type of book you read and want to immediately share, because it's too important to keep to yourself." --Julie Murphy, author of Dumplin'

"If I Was Your Girl is important and necessary and brave, and deeply, electrically inspiring. Read this wonderful book. Just read it." --Jennifer Niven, author of All the Bright Places

"If I Was Your Girl will change minds and open hearts." --Nina Lacour, author of We Are Okay

"If I Was Your Girl is real and raw and layered and wonderful." --Alex Gino, author of George

"If there's any justice in the world, we're all witnessing a YA powerhouse in the making." --Forever YA

"Pure magic." --Book Riot