Being Emily
Publisher
Bella Books
Publication Year
2012
ISBN
9781594932830
Pages
210 pages
Genre
realism
Format
novel
Item Type
Fiction
Annotation
They say that whoever you are it's okay, you were born that way. Those words don't comfort Emily, because she was born Christopher and her insides know that her outsides are all wrong. They say that it gets better, be who are you and it'll be fine. For Emily, telling her parents who she really is means a therapist who insists Christopher is normal and Emily is sick. Telling her girlfriend means lectures about how God doesn't make that kind of mistake. Emily desperately wants high school in her small Minnesota town to get better. She wants to be the woman she knows is inside, but it's not until a substitute therapist and a girl named Natalie come into her life that she believes she has a chance of actually Being Emily. A story for anyone who has ever felt that the inside and outside don't match and no one else will understand
Grade Level
9-12
Diversity Topics
LGBTQ (Gender and Sexuality); Transgender; Gender noncomformity; boy to girl; transgender teenager; boys who dress like girls
Main Character
girl
Race/Ethnicities
White
Family Formation
mother and father
LGBTQ+
boy to girl transgender
Awards
Moonbeam Children's Book Award, 2013, Gold, Young Adult Fiction (Mature Issues)
Keywords
sexual orientation; teenagers; friends; relationships; school; swim team; hormones
Diversity Impact
direct
STARS Citation
Gold, Rachel, "Being Emily" (2012). Diverse Families. 834.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/diversefamilies/834