For Today I Am A Boy
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4.0 • 24 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
Finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award
A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection
Longlisted for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize
The universally acclaimed debut novel from a powerful new voice in literary fiction.
At birth, Peter Huang is given the Chinese name juan chaun, meaning powerful king. He is the exalted only son in a family of daughters; the one who will finally fulfill his father’s dreams of western masculinity. But Peter has different dreams: he knows that he is a girl.
Peter and his sisters—the elegant Adele, the shrewd Helen, and Bonnie, the bon vivant—grow up in a house of many secrets, then escape the confines of small-town Ontario and spread from Montreal to California to Berlin. Peter’s own journey is obstructed by playground bullies, masochistic lovers, Christian ex-gays and the ever-present shadow of his father.
Sensitive, witty and stunningly assured, Kim Fu’s debut novel is a coming-of-age tale like no other and marks the emergence of an astonishing new Canadian literary voice. Both lyrical and steely-eyed, For Today I Am a Boy shows us an unforgettable struggle: that of a woman in the body of a Chinese Canadian man.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Peter Huang’s birth is a source of celebration for his Chinese-Canadian father, whose old-world values hold firm despite his desperate desire to assimilate among his small-town Ontario neighbours. But for Peter—whose treasured childhood memories involve styling his sisters’ luxurious hair, clandestinely cleaning the house wearing his mother’s apron, and losing himself in Audrey Hepburn’s Sabrina—being a boy has always felt like a form of torture. Debut novelist Kim Fu does a remarkable job of entering the heart and mind of her protagonist, for whom hiding becomes second nature. Unfolding in startling flashes of memory, Fu’s narrative reverberates with pain while also rejoicing in the careening independence of Peter’s three sisters—who’ve always seen and loved their sibling unconditionally. Moving from Michel, Ontario, to Montréal and ultimately Paris, For Today I Am a Boy tracks Peter’s singular journey and explores larger issues of identity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's a marker of how quickly things change that a novel detailing the thoughts, hopes, and fears of a boy who wishes he would have been born a girl feels like it covers familiar terrain. But even if some of the markers of Peter Huang's trouble with his body the experimentation with his sister's makeup, for instance, or the fascination with women's self-presentation are things we've seen before, debut author Fu's sharp eye and the book's specificity of place (the Huangs live in small-town Canada, where Peter's father does whatever it takes to fit in and the rest of his family lies to him) provide freshness. Peter grows up; watches his favorite sister go off to college; connives with Bonnie, the sister nearest to him in age (he cooks the meals she's supposed to be making, while she learns to "wear heels" and "not look twelve"); gets a restaurant job; and plots his escape to Montreal, the city of possibility. Once there, he tries to find a way to have intimate relationships, and eventually, painfully, comes to see that he doesn't have to be the thing he never was. Although the focus is always Peter, Fu is adept at depicting the shifting alliances between him and his sisters, and at revealing how being an outsider shapes Peter's expectations and options, which adds another layer to the story.
Customer Reviews
Good read
I felt like I got to know the characters in this book. There are so many real issues at play in its pages: the struggle of immigrants in new countries, familial expectations, and of course, the most obvious, issues of gender and sexuality. This novel was moving. Especially towards the end. I'm gay and haven't really taken time to think on trans issues. This book is eye-opening and much needed.