An author's note about gender identity (that names some resources but lacks direct links) is appended. The book also helpfully gives Ana some room to breathe and think over her gender identity rather than requiring certainty out of the gate, and readers will be glad to see her nearest and dearest treat her coming out with love and kindness. Sass, himself a figure skater, fills the book with knowledgeable detail about skating, and the fact that it's an intensely gender performative sport (there's even passing reference to a routine wherein Ana's gay coach seemed credibly in love with his female partner) makes Ana's issues especially immediate. Hayden's comments about gender and pronouns lead Ana to explore her own identity and determine that she's nonbinary-but how can she tell Hayden she's not who he thinks, and what does being nonbinary mean for her skating? Ana (who opts to use she/her pronouns even after coming out) is a sympathetic narrator, and the book treats her errors fairly as she drifts from her best friend and essentially uses Hayden, with appropriate hurt and pushback from both. When she hears that Hayden, a new student at her rink, is a trans boy she's drawn to him and ends up in a friendship with him wherein she passes for a boy. 4-7Īt twelve, Ana is the reigning junior figure skate champion, but moving up to the next age level is proving difficult she especially dislikes her new choreography, which is uncomfortably girly for very not-girly Ana.
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