Just Happy to Be Here
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In this YA standalone perfect for fans of Tobly McSmith and Meredith Russo, the first out trans girl at an all-girls school must choose between keeping her head down or blazing a trail.
Tara just wants to be treated like any other girl at Ainsley Academy.
That is, judged on her merits—not on her transness. But there’s no road map for being the first trans girl at an all-girls school. And when she tries to join the Sibyls, an old-fashioned Ainsley sisterhood complete with code names and special privileges, she’s thrust into the center of a larger argument about what girlhood means and whether the club should exist at all.
Being the figurehead of a movement isn’t something Tara’s interested in. She’d rather read old speeches and hang out with the Sibyls who are on her side—especially Felicity, a new friend she thinks could turn into something more. Then the club’s sponsor, a famous alumna, attacks her in the media and turns the selection process into a spectacle.
Tara’s always found comfort in the power of other peoples’ words. But when it comes time to fight for herself, will she be able to find her own voice?
Boarding School Novel: At the prestigious Ainsley Academy, Tara navigates challenging classes, elite traditions, and the complex social hierarchy of an all-girls school.Finding Your Voice: When a powerful alumna turns her bid to join the Sibyls into a media spectacle, Tara must go from studying great speeches to delivering one of her own.Found Family: Amidst the controversy, Tara discovers unexpected allies within the Sibyls, forging fierce, loyal friendships that redefine sisterhood.Queer Romance: The bond with Felicity, a sharp-witted Sibyl, offers the possibility of first love—if the pressure of the spotlight doesn’t tear them apart first.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A transgender teen views a secret society as her path to acceptance in this earnest novel by Kanakia (We Are Totally Normal). Tara Rituveni, 15, is the first trans student at all-girls Ainsley Academy. Her Indian immigrant parents are hesitantly supportive but oppose hormone therapy, and worry that potential retaliation from Virginia's increasingly anti-trans government could threaten their precarious immigration status. Tara hopes that if she's chosen as one of two students to join the illustrious Sibyls—a society that offers hefty scholarship dollars financially backed by Ainsley's most successful alumna, Evnangeline Beaumont—she'll feel less out of place. Evangeline's nephew Liam, a trans student at Ainsley's all-boys counterpart school, warns Tara that his aunt is transphobic, and that seems to prove true when Tara's eligibility for Sibyls is questioned. Older student Felicity, Tara's new friend and crush, soon concocts a plan to sneak Tara into the society's membership interviews, which has unexpected consequences. While the jam-packed plot can occasionally feel a bit woolly, Kanakia's exploration of the spaces between social and medical transition is heartfelt and necessary, and Tara's complex and realistically contradictory emotions around her experiences are effectively conveyed. Supporting characters read as white. Ages 14–up.
