Annabel by Kathleen Winter

About the book

Annabel by Kathleen Winter is a LGBTQ novel. The book was published by Vintage on 1^st March 2012 and it is 480 pages long.

Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads.com)

In 1968, into the devastating, spare atmosphere of the remote coastal town of Labrador, Canada, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret: the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbor and midwife, Thomasina. Though Treadway makes the difficult decision to raise the child as a boy named Wayne, the women continue to quietly nurture the boy’s female side. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as "Annabel," is never entirely extinguished.

What I thought

For my final essay for my Reading Gender and Sexuality class at university, I got to choose either one or two books of my own choice to use with either one or two from the course. The most interesting for me on the course concerned transgender and my sister highly recommended this one to me to use as well.

Annabel tells the story of a family living in a remote town in Canada. The town is very male driven, with the men of each family going out to hunt etc. Women are mostly stay at home mums and very few of them have ‘important’ jobs. When Jacinta and Treadway have a baby, everything changes. The baby is born a hermaphrodite and the couple have no idea how to deal with that, let alone how to bring the baby up. I really enjoyed the slow build up in this novel, as the setting is a very important thing. Being set in a town where different is not celebrated, and due to it being set in the late ‘60s, Kathleen Winter addresses issues which would have been seen to be controversial.

As Jacinta and Treadway bring up baby Wayne, it is never clear whether or not it was the right thing to do. The novel questions whether how a person is brought up can really affect the way they turn out later in life. Treadway never wants to admit that Wayne could actually be more female and feminine so he spends a lot of time and effort trying to teach Wayne the ‘right’ ways to be a man especially in the town in which they live. It was interesting to see the different influences that different people had on Wayne as this showed both his masculine and feminine side.

Winter makes sure that the reader gets to see things from all sides, which was something I really appreciated. I don’t think that I would have cared as much about Wayne, had I not gotten to know his parents and friends and how each separate person treated him. Wayne on his own was a wonderful character though and one who was easy to warm to. For a large part of the book, Wayne doesn’t know anything about when he was born and what the family went through so admission and acceptance are strong themes within the novel. A lot of time is spent on Wayne’s childhood and him being a teenager which were some of the best chapters of this book. From following Wayne as a baby right until his twenties, Winter makes it possible to understand and have empathy for him.

Annabel is a really important novel which tackles some serious issues. What I loved so much about this is the crossover into the young adult genre. I think that this book appeals a lot to adults as well as young adults and there is something in there for everyone. The novel is beautifully and thoughtfully written and one which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger

About the book

Parrotfish is a young adult book by Ellen Wittlinger. It was published in America by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers on 10^th July 2007 and the book is 294 pages long.

Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads.com)

Angela Katz-McNair has never felt quite right as a girl. Her whole life is leading up to the day she decides to become Grady, a guy. While coming out as transgendered feels right to Grady, he isn't prepared for the reaction he gets from everyone else. His mother is upset, his younger sister is mortified, and his best friend, Eve, won't acknowledge him in public. Why can't people just let Grady be himself?

Grady's life is miserable until he finds friends in some unexpected places -- like the school geek, Sebastian, who explains that there is precedent in the natural world (parrotfish change gender when they need to, and the newly male fish are the alpha males), and Kita, a senior who might just be Grady's first love.

What I thought

As part of one of my university classes, I have to write an essay on a topic of my choosing as long as it fits with the Gender and Sexuality subject. The book from the course I am using is Trumpet by Jackie Kay and I’m writing about transgender. This led me to browsing books on Amazon about the subject and I came across this one.

Parrotfish is told from protagonist Grady’s point of view. However, Grady was actually born a girl although has never felt like one. Set in modern day America, Grady comes out to his family as transgendered and expresses his wishes to be called Grady, instead of Angela. Grady was a cute character, knowing exactly who he was and what he wanted out of life. It was refreshing to see someone so confident in themselves, especially someone going through the struggles of people understanding him. Grady has a wonderful narrative voice, if not a bit juvenile at times.

This book is all about coming out as transgendered and other people’s reactions. Society can still be very harsh when it comes to people a little hard to understand sometimes, people who are different from the norm. Not only does this book show Grady’s struggles at school but also in his home life. While his father is pretty understanding, just wanting Grady to be happy, his mother is not quite the same. She has trouble understanding why Angela wants to be called Grady, why her precious daughter chopped off her hair and wears boys clothes from a charity shop. Ellen Wittlinger shows that sometimes it is family members who have the hardest time accepting change and I think she did a great job in showing this through Grady’s mother.

At school, Grady’s life is far from easy. Most of the other kids don’t know what to do or say when teachers start calling Angela Grady. Some of the kids don’t really have a problem with him at all but then there are a select few characters who are determined to make Grady’s life hell. I felt so sorry for Grady during the times set in school because all he wanted to do was get on with his life as he felt was right but instead, he was subjected to some quite harsh bullying. However, there are some saviours at school for Grady such as his gym teacher and new found friends Sebastian and Kita. These secondary characters were fantastic and it was nice to see that Grady did have people that understood him.   

Parrotfish is heart-warming and extremely informative about a subject I barely knew anything about. Wittlinger’s writing makes you fall in love with her characters and really hope everything works out okay for them.