78. Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff

Book borrowed from CCLS

2021, Dial Book for Young Readers
188 pgs.
Mid Gr CRF
Finished 7/24/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.30 - 371 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: contemporary rural Vermont

First line/s: "It's strange living in our old house now that Uncle Roderick is dead."

My comments: It's very difficult to review this book without spoilers, but I feel it's very important to read it without knowing exactly what is going to happen.  It's written beautifully. From the beginning I knew I wouldn't be able to put it into my new school's library, being a Catholic School and all the problems that Catholics seem to have with anything LGBTQ.  I need this job, so I won't fight that externally, only internally.  And now, spoilers are coming, so if you have not read this book and even have the tiniest notion you might, do not read further.  Bug, the protagonist, goes through an incredible transformation of identity in the summer s/he turns 13 and is getting ready for middle school.  Bug has been born with female "parts," and has been raised as a girl.  He discovers the reason that he never really sees himself when he looks in the mirror, just a copy of himself.  He discovers so much more than that as well...that he is transgender and immediately begins referring to himself as HE instead of she.  Everyone in his life is so understanding, no one bullies him or makes him feel in any way awkward or uncomfortable, neither kids he's grown up with or administrators in the new-to-him middle school.  How I would like to very much believe this would be the reality for kids like him!  In one of the reviews I read about this book, Betsy Bird says that she thinks that some kids are just getting tired of books and movies full of bullying and meanness (my words/translation).  I sure hope she's right!  The afterword by the author is very enlightening, I'm guessing this story - or a big part of it - is autobiographical.  

Goodreads synopsis:  A haunting ghost story about navigating grief, growing up, and growing into a new gender identity

          It's the summer before middle school and eleven-year-old Bug's best friend Moira has decided the two of them need to use the next few months to prepare. For Moira, this means figuring out the right clothes to wear, learning how to put on makeup, and deciding which boys are cuter in their yearbook photos than in real life. But none of this is all that appealing to Bug, who doesn't particularly want to spend more time trying to understand how to be a girl. Besides, there's something more important to worry about: A ghost is haunting Bug's eerie old house in rural Vermont...and maybe haunting Bug in particular. As Bug begins to untangle the mystery of who this ghost is and what they're trying to say, an altogether different truth comes to light--Bug is transgender.