English 325: I am J

I’ll be honest here, I really don’t know what to think of this one. I liked it, I thought it was a nice read with interesting characters and a good storyline. The thing is I don’t have much experience dealing with works of literature regarding the issues that this novel focuses on. I don’t really know what a fair portrayal is and what a stereotype is. Because of my own ignorance I felt like I was just floating through this work, buying into the information that was being presented before me as truth and just going with the story from there.

I empathize with J, and his whole ordeal. I think a lot of the work focused on teenage love, a subject that most people can admit is already hard enough. Add on the fact that J is transgender and it just makes the whole thing even more confusing. I think that’s one of the reasons I like this work is because even though I couldn’t relate to the main focus of the work, it makes it very clear that J is dealing with the same issues other guys deal with, just with some added stress tacked on.

The work feels very scatterbrained in many ways, popping between many different character and with those characters perceptions of J and what he’s going through. For this reason I found it somewhat difficult to follow the progression of him throughout the work, because I was constantly barraged with different and contrasting views of the protagonist, whether from J’s parents, Melissa, or the other characters in the work.

I think this text would work well with adolescents. First of all, I think it would do good relating to anybody going through the same sort of thing, but I don’t think this is the only merit. It also presents, at least I think it presents, a fair view of someone who is transgender, and that’s a good lesson for kids in high school. Plus, the book has relatable teenage problems that I think most kids can really connect and relate to whether they are transgender or not. Not being understood is a huge issue for most teens I think, and while this book takes that idea farther than what I think most people experience, it is a very relatable and relevant idea.

Like I said, I enjoyed this work. I didn’t think it was spectacular, it just kind of came and went. I liked it, didn’t love it. Maybe if I had a better understanding of the subject matter I would have liked it more, or perhaps less. What else can I say. Solid B.