Lily (or Tim, as Dad insists on calling her) wants
desperately to start taking hormone blockers before it’s too late and puberty sets in. Her sister, mother, and best friend Dare
accept that she is a girl. But her
father is afraid that she’ll be subject to harassment (or worse) at school if
she comes out. And there is some
justification for that fear.
Dunkin is new in town.
Big and tall, he’s still not used to his size or the way people treat
him. When some bullies recruit him for
the basketball team, he appreciates being accepted into their group. But he is torn between wanting to belong and
not joining in their petty cruelty to others.
Most of all, he is afraid that they will find out about his mental
illness.
Lily and Dunkin is a fairly busy middle reader that tackles not only
transgender and mental illness issues, but also conservation. It means well, but the field of books about
transgendered pre-adolescents has become crowded. While this is not a bad story, it doesn’t add much to
the Canon. It also suffers from being
repetitive. In
contrast, the part of the novel dealing with Dunkin’s mental illness seemed
fresh and insightful (and much more heartfelt).
As Gephart explains in the afterward, she has some skin in that game and it
shows. I would have put the focus on Dunkin
rather than bringing in Lily’s story in the first place.
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