The Transition
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A transgender teen’s post-op recovery is derailed when he is bitten by a werewolf and his body begins to change. A thought-provoking page-turner that will haunt you for days!
SHORTLISTED FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD
Hunter’s life is at a turning point: After years of fighting his father for it, he’s gotten top surgery. He’s finally starting to feel comfortable in his own skin . . . only to be attacked by a strange creature in his backyard.
Luckily, his best friend Gabe intervenes, and Hunter is able to walk away from the incident with his life—and new body—mostly intact. Still, something isn’t right. First, his wounds are healing . . . strangely. Then there are the feverish nightmares, and his teeth . . . they’re falling out of his head.
Enter Mars, Hunter’s other best friend, who points out the obvious: That mysterious creature was a werewolf, and Hunter is becoming one too—unless they can figure out a way to kill it.
Now, Hunter, Gabe, and Mars are in a race against time. A voice that could only belong to the creature itself is worming its way into Hunter’s head, and as the days pass, it’s getting louder. It promises revenge on Hunter’s transphobic peers if he succumbs to his lycanthropic transformation. Or he can reject the monster and fight alongside his friends before the body—and life—he’s fought so hard for slips away for good. The choice is Hunter’s.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A white-cued, transgender teen's recovery from top surgery takes a terrifying turn in this high-adrenaline horror novel from Kisner (Old Wounds). Seventeen-year-old Hunter is home recuperating post-op when he's mauled in his Chicago suburb backyard by a wild animal. Alarmingly, his wounds heal faster than they should, and he gets his period for the first time in years since starting testosterone. With his pilot father out of town, he turns to his best friends—hotheaded Korean American hockey player Gabe and imperious biracial (Filipina and assumed-white) Mars—who suspect that the creature was a werewolf. Certain the only way to stop Hunter from becoming a werewolf as well is to track down and kill his attacker, the trio concocts plans based on myths and rumors. Simultaneously, Hunter begins hearing in his mind the voice of the creature, to whom he feels a kinship. Soon the lure to join its pack—and avenge himself against bullying classmates—becomes too strong for Hunter to resist. Body horror elements involving rotten teeth and open wounds add grisly dimensionality to Hunter's mortal, adolescent challenges, including his attempts to understand his attraction to both Gabe and Mars, and managing grief over a long-lost friendship, which ground the intensely emotional narrative. It's a thrilling, provocative parable about body dysmorphia and transformation both earthly and mythical. Ages 14–up.
