Book Description
Publication Date: October 13, 2009 | Age Level: 14 and up | Grade Level: 9 and up
You only hurt the ones you love.
Logan Witherspoon recently discovered that his girlfriend of three years cheated on him. But things start to look up when a new student breezes through the halls of his small-town high school. Sage Hendricks befriends Logan at a time when he no longer trusts or believes in people. Sage has been homeschooled for a number of years and her parents have forbidden her to date anyone, but she won’t tell Logan why. One day, Logan acts on his growing feelings for Sage. Moments later, he wishes he never had. Sage finally discloses her big secret: she’s actually a boy. Enraged, frightened, and feeling betrayed, Logan lashes out at Sage and disowns her. But once Logan comes to terms with what happened, he reaches out to Sage in an attempt to understand her situation. But Logan has no idea how rocky the road back to friendship will be.
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up—A small-town Missouri boy's world is rocked when he falls for the new girl at school, and she eventually confesses that she is a biological male. Logan's world is small, as is his mind at first, but throughout the book he grows to accept and love Sage for who—not what—she is. This remarkable book takes a hard look at the difficulties and pain experienced by young male-to-female transsexuals from an easily relatable perspective, as Julie Ann Peters did in
Luna (Little, Brown, 2004). Logan is a conservative 18-year-old Everyman whose generic voice isn't—and doesn't need to be—anything special; although readers follow his growth, it is Sage's story that is truly important. A remarkably "clean" book dealing with sexuality and identity, this is neither preachy nor didactic while directly challenging prejudice and intolerance. With realistic characters and situations, it is a first purchase for all high school collections, and could easily be given to middle school readers who are undaunted by its length.—
Rhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Library
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Transsexuality is the issue in this candid novel told from the viewpoint of Logan, a high-school senior in a small Missouri town. The story quickly moves from Logan’s attraction to Sage, a cute, strange new girl at school, to his shock at the discovery that Sage was born male and is in transition to become a female. More than anything, Logan worries that once Sage’s identity is revealed, people will think that he is gay for being attracted to a boy. Then Sage attempts suicide, and Logan feels guilty about failing her. Unlike Sage’s brutal father, though, Logan never denies that Sage is a “she.” The story is long and repetitive, and the messages are overt, but many teens—both those familiar with transgender issues and those who are not—will welcome the honest take on a rarely explored subject. The biological facts about hormones and Sage’s changing body are woven in, and Katcher clearly dramatizes the characters’ secrets, lies, shame, and denial, as well as the cruel prejudice they experience with family and friends. Grades 9-12. --Hazel Rochman
