BookSlut.com – Colleen Mondor
People changed their hair and dieted themselves down to near death. They took steroids to build muscles and got breast implants and nose jobs so they resemble their favorite movie stars. They changed names and majors and jobs and husbands and wives. They changed religions and political parties. They move across the country or the world — even changed nationalities. Why was gender the one sacred thing we weren?t supposed to change? Who made that rule?
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So when I read the Booklist review of Ellen Wittlinger?s Parrotfish I was fairly stunned. This book, about a female high school student who is tired of pretending to be a happy girl and cuts her hair, changes her name, and now seeks to be accepted by everyone as the boy she knows herself to truly be, is an absolute revelation. There is nothing overly dramatic here — no parents that throw their child out, no physical attacks from fellow students or teachers who expel Grady after his transformation from Angela.