Part of an essay series for LBS 803. This essay was from the week that focused on "SEXY/ROMANTIC" books...
Russo, Meredith. (2016.) If I Was Your Girl. New York City, New York: Alloy Entertainment. Keywords: LGBTQIA+, the South, high school, senior year, friendships, romance. Recommended grade level: grade 9 & up. Fiction, Novel.
Topic: How does Amanda’s desire to be true to herself drive the novel?
Throughout If I Was Your Girl, Amanda struggles with two opposing forces: her desire to share the truth of her past versus that she “won the genetic lottery” in regard to “passing.”
Amanda is, at heart, a fundamentally honest person who feels strongly in living her convictions. The strongest evidence in support of this is that she transitioned to a woman. Transitioning is a very hard path, both physically and emotionally, for someone to choose, and she only decided to take this brave and life-altering step after a near-successful suicide attempt. On page 187, Amanda’s mother put it succinctly when she said, “Andrew Hardy was going to die one way or the other, and one of the choices gave me a daughter in exchange while the other left me with no one.”
Amanda knew as a young child that she was meant to be a woman, and as this knowledge has been with her for her whole life, it’s part of who she is and her life experience. She cannot just erase or forget the time she spent as Andrew and her struggles to become Amanda. When speaking with her friend Virginia, who acts as a mentor, she is open about her desire to share her “old” identity with her new friends. She says, on page 177, “And it obviously isn’t everything, but being...being the way I am has been a huge part of my life. It’s easy to act like my past never happened, but it feels like I’ve put up this wall around my heart.” In the same conversation, the author writes:
- I looked up at her and took a deep breath. “Do you think I should tell him?” …. “I don’t know,” I said, scrunching my nose and sighing. “I feel like maybe he should know who I am…”
To Amanda, her past as Andrew is part of her core identity, and keeping this a secret is a lie of admission. While this paper is not to make a statement on trans people and what they should or should not reveal to their friends or acquaintances, it’s clear in the novel that Amanda strongly feels that she needs to share her story with her loved ones. This thought especially comes to light when she attends a Baptist church with her friend Anna and Anna’s family. The pastor’s sermon brought emotions bubbling to the surface for Amanda:
- Radical honesty and radical faith are at the heart of Christianity, ladies and gentlemen (p. 87)
- As the pastor went on, his words kept repeating in my brain - a dishonest life is a life half-lived. Was it really true? Would my friendships and my relationships always be dishonest if I was forever hiding my part? (p. 88)
Amanda is especially tormented that she is keeping her past a secret from her boyfriend Grant. She knows from hearing about his friend Tommy that he is thoughtful, kind, and friendly to the LGBTQIA+ community (p. 68), but she does not know how he would feel if he realized that his girlfriend Amanda used to be someone named Andrew. This push/pull feeling of telling Grant - or not telling him - is constant.
- The thought that had been bubbling just under the surface for weeks arose once more, unbidden: What if I told Grant the truth? (p. 182)
Sadly, Amanda is all too aware that it’s a matter of life and death when it comes to keeping her past a secret. Her father practically exists in the story to act as a voice of caution (p. 26, p. 82, p. 128, p. 216, and more), and she also sees signs all around her that her environment is hostile to the LGBTQIA+ community. Anna’s car, which Amanda rides in several times, sports a bumper sticker that says “I can’t help that I’m homophobic...I was born that way!” (p. 83). On page 58, fellow student Parker lets his hateful flag fly, when he refers to Grant’s friend Tommy as “Grant’s little gay boyfriend.” In the same conversation, he also says, “Yo, Grant. The new girl know you’ve got a vagina?” Amanda thinks, “I flinched as if I’d been struck. I wondered why people still made comments like that. I wondered when I’d stop caring.” And while Amanda was internally debating whether or not she should type her story to Grant, the book says:
- I sat up straight again, took a deep breath, and opened my eyes to see the blank Word document still waiting for me. The cursor blinked over and over, like a promise, or a threat. (p. 182)
The book is a stressful and illuminating journey to the finale, when Amanda is painfully and publicly outed by her former “friend” Bee, and then physically attacked by Parker. After the attack, Amanda travels back home to her mother and recuperates. At that time, once Amanda’s secret is no longer a secret, she is able to reconcile with her father, and they speak honestly and vulnerably for perhaps the first time in Amanda’s life (pp. 255-258). Amanda decides to return back to her life at her father’s house, which involves facing her (possibly former) friends, ex-boyfriend, and judgmental strangers.
Facing her high school is an act that requires courage, and it is something that Amanda could have avoided by staying with her mother. However, this act, which could be frightening, infuses Amanda with a sense of peace.
- I breathed and marveled at how normal everything felt. The world had ended, and yet the world was still here. (p. 264)
- I realized that even though I didn’t know her, she knew me, and the thought that she noticed I was gone - and that I’d come back - made me smile. (p. 268)
For the first time, Amanda’s internal world matches the external world’s knowledge of her. That resolution of conflict - her ability to publicly live her truth - sets her free.
I decided that the people who had said God didn’t love me, who said that I didn’t have a place on Earth - they were wrong. God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted. This was what I wanted. I had chosen to live, and it seemed like, finally, I was doing just that. (p. 89)
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