Me on The Gallery of Unfinished Girls

Title: The Gallery of Unfinished Girls
Author: Lauren Karcz
Release Date: July 25, 2017
Publisher: HarperTeen (HarperCollins imprint)

Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn't been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year. Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings. Despite Mercedes's creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the abandoned Red Mangrove Estate. At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn't ever before. But Mercedes can't take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can't live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality.

The Gallery of Unfinished Girls is an exploration, a look at how far we go and the people we meet on journeys of self-discovery. It's a look at creativity, what drives us and what happens when we lose that drive, the passion and the joy and the sense of loss.

Mercedes is bright and creative, an artist to the core, but not right now. Inspiration has left her, leading to her being afraid that she'll never paint anything worthwhile again. Maybe it's because she has a lot weighing her down right now. Like how her abuela is in a coma in San Juan and the doctors aren't sure if she'll ever wake up. Like how she has no idea where she'll be going to college in the fall. Like how she's in love with her best friend Victoria but is scared to tell her, scared she'll ruin their friendship. Until her new neighbour takes her to the Estate. Until Mercedes finally feels free enough to paint.

So much of this book is about Mercedes figuring herself out, what she wants and how she sees the world. What she wants to express of herself in her art, how much of herself that she's willing to express, to show to other people. She keeps her affection secret from Victoria and it settles in her, like a hard lump in her chest, leaving her unable to express herself. It's the holding in of all these worries that blocks her, and only at the Estate, where anything is possible, does she feel free. All Mercedes has to do is take that impossibly hard first step and say out loud what she's feeling, but how can she when it's so hard, so impossible for her?

This book is honest and rough, nailing those end of high school uncertainties so well. What next? How can I tell someone the truth? What if I never paint again? What if she dies? What am I supposed to do? There's an honest vulnerability to Mercedes, her unsure feelings of the future and her hope that she can stagnate in the present. That she can be free to paint and creative and live at the Estate, even when a small part of her knows she can't. This is a book that's mysteriously magical, similar to AnnaMarie McLemore's books can be. If you're a fan of magical realism, books like McLemore's or Nova Ren Suma's, you might want to check this out.

(I downloaded an e-galley of this title from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.)

Me on None of the Above

Title: None of the Above
Author: I.W. Gregorio
Release Date: April 7, 2015
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins imprint)

When Kristin Lattimer is voted homecoming queen, it seems like another piece of her ideal life has fallen into place. She's a champion hurdler with a full scholarship to college and she's madly in love with her boyfriend. In fact, she's decided that she's ready to take things to the next level with him. But Kristin's first time isn't the perfect moment she's planned--something is very wrong. A visit to the doctor reveals the truth: Kristin is intersex, which means that though she outwardly looks like a girl, she has male chromosomes, not to mention boy "parts." Dealing with her body is difficult enough, but when her diagnosis is leaked to the whole school, Kristin's entire identity is thrown into question. As her world unravels, can she come to terms with her new self?

None of the Above is intense, compelling, emotional, and powerful. It's about the changes in one girl's life when she discovers she's intersex. The changes in her body, the changes in the people around her. The changes in her own thoughts and feelings about who she is and what it means to be a girl. Or a guy. Or neither. Or both.

Kristin is smart, personable. A bright girl with a clear voice. A bright future ahead of her, but then her world shifts and falls out from under her. For her, this is an impossible situation. Never would she have ever imagined this to happen. Her sadness, her floundering, her attempts at trying to cope and move on. All are written with such honesty and believability.

This book raises a number of questions regarding, sex, gender, and identity. Sex is biological while gender is a social construct. How we define each when it comes to ourselves makes up part of our identity. How we see ourselves alone, in public. But what happens when who we are biologically suddenly conflicts with how we see ourselves socially? Kristin's disconnect between the two is visceral. Nothing feels right, nothing feels 'normal.' Everything feels wrong. But nothing is wrong with her. It's hard for her to move past that in the beginning, past the 'male or female please pick one' gender binary that's been drummed into our heads for centuries. It's hard for her to understand that she can still be a girl. It's hard for her to understand that it's all up to her. It's her decision on who she wants to be and not anyone else's.

When Kristin's peers take the knowledge of her being intersex and turn it against her, it's horrifying and smacks of prejudice. It's a fear of the other, of the unknown. Suddenly she's different in their eyes, she's not the same person. It's not about them, even though they make it about them. Every time they joke about it, every time they catcall her with slurs and names. What right do they have to take this big change and make it bigger, darker, more painful? They act like she did this on purpose. It's frightening, knowing how cruel people can be, how their opinions can change so quickly because of something they can't see. Ignorance is rampant. It ruins lives. It must be stopped.

This is an honest, eye-opening, heartfelt look at identity, at gender identity, at what makes us think we're male or female, or neither, or both. I wanted to reach into the book and hug Kristin at every speed bump, every moment she felt like she was less than a girl. Less than human. Nothing is wrong with her and she struggles to remember that every day. She shouldn't have to.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from HarperCollins Canada.)