| Title | : | For Today I Am a Boy |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0544034724 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780544034723 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 |
| Publication | : | First published January 14, 2014 |
| Awards | : | Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction (2015), Canadian Authors Association Award Emerging Writer (2015), The Center for Fiction Longlist (2014) |
At birth, Peter had been given the Chinese name Juan Chaun, powerful king. The exalted only son in the middle of three daughters, Peter was the one who would finally embody his immigrant father's ideal of power and masculinity. But Peter has different dreams: he is certain he is a girl.
Sensitive, witty, and stunningly assured, Kim Fu’s debut novel lays bare the costs of forsaking one’s own path in deference to one laid out by others. For Today I Am a Boy is a coming-of-age tale like no other, and marks the emergence of an astonishing new literary voice.
For Today I Am a Boy Reviews
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This novel was so good I devoured it in two days. It follows the main character, Peter Huang, throughout his life. Peter was born a boy, but believes he is a girl.
I've read a few transgender books before, but the way Fu was able to take me into the innocence and confusion of her main character was remarkable. She shows what it feels like to essentially live a double life. How culture and society can become destructive forces when they hinder one's ability to choose a life directed from within.
The beginning in many ways sets the stage for Peter's life. Early on, his father tells him "We waited a long time for you. In a family the man is king. Without you, I die - no king." He is the only boy in a family of three sisters, and feels he is one of them. Before he begins school his oldest sister tells him, he is a boy. Peter is confused and saddened, and we watch as he tries to fit in with the boys. He feels forced to live a life full of secrets and shame. It isn't until a life changing event occurs in college, that Peter finally begins to question how he has been living.
I always find it amazing that children know their gender at such an early age. Fu's book is timely, and gives the story of one person who's life reflects so many. She focuses mainly on the feelings and emotions of growing up knowing you are different. -
From
The Book Wheel:
When I was in college, I took a human sexuality course and sat next to a beautiful woman who had, as it turned out, been born a male. And so was her girlfriend. To top it off, one had reassignment surgery and the other had not (but was planning to). Naturally, the class was abuzz with whispering about whether they were heterosexual (due to body parts), homosexual (due to birth body parts), or lesbians (due to identity). But the best part about the whole thing was that the two of them opened up the floor for us to ask any question we wanted without judgment. Every single hand shot up within seconds.
Needless to say, it was an educational experience and, if I had to pick one, the single most educational moment of my college career (if any of my readers are in Gainesville, FL and know these lovely ladies, please pass on their impact). But this was ten years ago when equal protections for transgendered were being advocated for the first time (it passed) and the general population wasn’t reading books about it.
For the full review,
click here. -
This is an own-voices review for being a transgender woman, but I am white and do not share the protagonist’s ethnicity. For Today I Am A Boy left me unsettled in ways I didn’t expect, and not entirely in the good kind of unsettled you want from some literature. I’m going to be harsh here because it’s how I feel, having read the book, but I would like to disclaim up front that even though this review is own-voices, it is still only my voice. In particular, Audrey comes of age in the 1980s and 1990s, before the web was widely accessible—I have had the privilege of knowing about and being able to read about transgender issues for a long time. So perhaps an older trans woman who is Audrey’s contemporary will see herself in this book. But the more I sit here, stunned and disconcerted, the more I come to the conclusion that For Today I Am A Boy is a most elegant example of CanLit at its best, by which I mean its worst: the packaging and retelling of a marginalized character’s story for the entertainment and edification of an outside audience.
Trigger warnings for transphobia, homophobia, racism, rape, sexual assault of a minor. Seriously, this book is a cavalcade of violent (by which I mean disturbing physical and mental harm) incidents.
Audrey Huang is assigned male at birth and grows up with a Chinese immigrant father who has very rigid ideas of masculinity and sees Audrey as his only son. Audrey never quite gets the hang of masculinity, recognizing her gender incongruity from an early age and coveting signs of feminine expression that her sisters are allowed. Eventually she moves to Montréal as an adult, where she can explore her identity, albeit tentatively and with a fair amount of internalized shame. As Fu unravels Audrey’s journey towards accepting herself, Fu revisits some of Audrey’s most prominent and sometimes painful memories of childhood and adolescence. This includes times Audrey was forced to (or failed to) conform to boyhood notions of masculinity, as well as Audrey’s various sexual encounters as an adult.
The first few chapters of this book were interesting but ok for me, with a notable exception. I don’t share Audrey’s experience of dysphoria and exploring girlhood at a young age, yet I still found myself sympathizing with her experiences, her sense of not belonging. While my journey towards coming out to myself as trans looks very different from Audrey’s, I completely understand what she goes through in this book. And that notable exception? Yeah, um, very early on in the novel we get a scene where Audrey is a child and participates, as a result of peer pressure from the nasty ringleader of her friend group of boys, in the sexual assault of another girl. I almost put down the book and didn’t come back; the scene seemed so gratuitous, rape-as-plot-device. It’s meant to drive home the idea that Audrey is not just another boy (because all boys are homophobic sexual assault machines?), but it’s just such a disturbing choice of device to demonstrate that.
That is this book’s pattern: plot device. The violence that happens in this book serves to drive Audrey’s story forward; seldom do we get to pause and understand, reflect upon, or evaluate this violence in the context of society. Despite using a non-linear narrative structure, Fu never lets present-day Audrey interject or editorialize. Instead we receive a stream-of-consciousness perspective that dispassionately explains how Audrey feels as the events of her life unfold before us.
Fu portrays Audrey’s dysphoria in numerous, perhaps stereotypical ways: the desire to rid herself of body hair, the desire to wear dresses and heels, and a fascination with women’s bodies as a kind of envy. I won’t compare these experiences to my own—partly because I don’t want to share that here and now, and partly because its irrelevant to the idea of whether or not they are stereotypical. They’re stereotypical because they really only scratch the surface of transness. To be trans is to understand oneself to be apart from one’s gender assigned at birth. We get some hints of that in Audrey’s narration, but for someone who has three sisters, none of them ever sat down with Audrey and actually just, you know, had an honest conversation with her about her desire for girlhood?
The flip side of dysphoria, you might be interested in knowing, is euphoria. Up until near the end of the book, gender euphoria seems absent from Audrey’s experiences—her enjoyment of wearing her mother’s apron or her sister’s dress don’t count, in my opinion, because Fu fails to explore why such experiences are so validating. No, euphoria doesn’t arrive until literally the last few pages of the novel, when Audrey finally embraces herself, picks a name, and then we cut to a single paragraph showing the four Huang sisters, finally complete.
And that’s what is so frustrating about this book. Audrey goes from nearly rejecting the help of a trans man and his girlfriend to flashing forward to that moment with her sisters, and I just … I almost threw the book across the room at that point, because I felt cheated. I trudged through 200 pages of violent transphobia because I’d glanced ahead and knew it would pay off in some way. But then Fu goes and elides the months or years during which Audrey actually transitions! Perhaps the most interesting and most important part of Audrey’s journey gets handwaved away to give us a brief coda that I guess is supposed to be artsy and poignant because that’s what they teach you in MFA writing courses.
Updated July 2022: A commenter has pointed out that
Kim Fu is agender (she/he/they), information which was not available to me when I wrote this review in 2020. Therefore, the paragraph below doesn’t necessarily accurately apply to Fu, although I stand by my assertion that we don’t need cis authors writing trans main characters right now.
For Today I Am A Boy is a cisgender person’s idea of all the worst things that a closeted trans person might endure on their way to self-acceptance. But you cannot just sit down and make a list of all the bad things a trans person might endure and then turn that into a story. The result is a book that looks deep at the surface yet is, if you dip your toe into it, shallow through and through. And it is so, so telling that this book won a bunch of awards and left CanLit critics salivating while books by trans authors go unremarked or even unpublished: cis authors build their careers on telling stories that aren’t theirs while trans authors languish in obscurity. I say that with all due respect to Fu and her skills—but we don’t need more cis authors writing what they think it’s like to be trans. We particularly don’t need cis authors writing these books for a cis audience under the mistaken impression it makes for poignant and moving Literature—you know, the struggle. Trans people, people of any marginalization, are not your porn.
Originally posted on
Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
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Fu’s formidable debut, reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides and John Irving, makes a worthy addition to my
list of gender-pioneering books. In 1979, Peter Huang is born – the third of four children, and the much-wanted only son – to a Chinese immigrant family outside Toronto. He grows up in a kind of sorority made up of older sisters Adele and Helen, and younger sister Bonnie. In first grade, for his “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” assignment, he chooses “Mommy.”
Despite school bullies and his father’s push toward conventional gender roles, Peter knows he is meant to be a girl. His sisters all figure him out, sooner or later, and his attempted sexual relationships with women – one a sadomasochist, one an Evangelical ex-lesbian – convince him that he cannot continue living a lie. After a decade and more spent working in Montreal’s chic restaurant world and cross-dressing in secret at home, Peter meets a young chef named John who was born a girl; the friendship will give him the courage he needs to live out his real identity.
The novel reminds me most of
Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (another gender-bender set in Canada) and Hanna Pylväinen’s We Sinners – especially the way Peter delves deeper, in turn, into the lives of each of his sisters and his mother (his father remains something of an enigma, however). The writing is strong, especially in the tremendous first and last paragraphs. The title (taken from a song of the same name by Antony and the Johnsons) and cover (I’ve seen three different ones, all great, but my NetGalley edition was the one with the pink wig) are also spot-on. Kim Fu is only 26; I’m so impressed with this first display of her talent, and can’t wait to see what she comes out with next.
(I enjoyed
this interview with Fu; it even includes a suggestion of what to drink while reading!) -
This is a book that well and truly broke my little heart.
-
2 1/2 Stars
Peter Huang, born to a Chinese couple whom migrated to Canada and the only male in amongst his three siblings. There’s a level of hierarchy within the family were the father is the domineering one, the bread winner and decision maker, and the mother is expected to carry out her ‘Motherly/Wife’ duties and her opinion and voice is not heard. The father had high expectations for all his children as far as education and career goes but with Peter, being the treasured male in his father’s eyes, there was a greater emphasis on him to become the powerful king - like his real name in Chinese – and to show his masculinity. In later years, the demands of his father and his last words to Peter had an overwhelming impact on Peter’s ability to move on and lead a life he desired; he felt trapped, riddled with guilt and confused by the body he had been given. Because all he can think about is being a girl.
The Author has a beautiful writing style; smooth to the ears, readable, and has an honest respect for the issues raised. But unfortunately, it was the only thing that kept me reading to the end. The plot and the character building lacked substance and order. I assume this book would be primarily about Peter’s and his struggle with gender identity – it’s a small book so how much could you possibility pack in? But Fu would branch out into different directions with these individual chapters, detailing the lives of his rebellious sisters and character’s that were introduced along the way. I didn't feel they had any great impact to the progress of the plot or the level of enjoyment, and at times it didn’t seem as though it had any relevance – or perhaps I missed the point or message completely. The side characters had vibrant personalities, which overshadowed Peter (the main protagonist) and his struggles, and I felt totally detached from Peter; he was flat and not properly drawn out.
Disappointed in the novels structure and depth but there's a sure sign that Ms Fu can write.
Read for #litexp14- Drama
Thanks to Random House Australia Pty Ltd and Netgalley for my review copy -
Peter wrestles with gender expectations and his own gender identity.
Fu introduces the reader to a family ruled by a quasi tyrannical father heavy on Chinese cultural and traditional beliefs. Although the story focuses on each family member, Peter ultimately becomes the center of the narrative.
Peter, the only male son born of two Chinese immigrants – his life mapped out from the womb by his father. The burden of expectation serves as a yoke around Peter’s neck. Successful, a pillar of strength, marriage along with a family – merely scratching at the life sketched for Peter.“I drew myself with a stiff halo of hair, swaddled babies around my feet. A satisfied smile from ear to ear. “I want to be a Mommy.”
However Peter hopes for a different life, a life he only shares with his sisters, a hidden secret kept from his parents.
Peter sneaks moments where he can be his authentic self – wearing an apron, cooking, cleaning, dressing up, applying make-up. Tasks performed alone, fearful of how the world will accept her.“I felt a wave of panic. I never peed standing up. When I had to, I thought of my body as a machine, a robot that did my bidding. A combination of arms and legs and heart and lungs. It had nothing to do with me. My real body was somewhere else, waiting for me. It looked like my sisters’ bodies.”
The story gives hope but it really highlights the pain and isolation of living a life as a lie. How you have to hide your authentic self due to parental disapproval along with societal scorn. Fitting into an unfamiliar an awkward skin feeling as if you’re an unwelcome intruder, clearly knowing your trapped in a body representing the wrong sex.
Fu masters Peter and his brutal and beautiful story. Painful tinged with hope. -
I first encountered this book on a GoodReads list,
Anticipated Literary Reads for Readers of Color 2014. I'm not really comfortable with the term "color" but the list is great, and I added almost everything to my to-read list, since I am always trying to read new authors from different backgrounds. Then it came up on
NetGalley and I jumped at the chance, and the publisher agreed to let me read an eARC for an honest review.
For Today I Am a Boy is about Peter, one of the youngest siblings in a Chinese-Canadian family, who struggles with his gender identity without having a name for it or a game plan. The author does a good job of demonstrating the difficulty of exploring gender within the confines of a traditional family with specific expectations for boys, but also the very real limits of self-denial and self-hatred. When Peter encounters a community of people more fluid in gender and sexual identity, it is almost like he doesn't know how to handle it, as he has lived so much of his true self in secret. I loved the details of the restaurant world, and it makes me think the author has had some experience there. Restaurants do tend to draw in the people who are on the outskirts!
I loved the ending, but won't spoil it here. Recommended. -
I wish a book like this had been around when I was young, could be heard screaming from the mountaintops of every reading list. There were actually, though maybe not on reading lists. If in my growing someone had put a copy of Jan Morris' Conundrum in my hands, would I have saved myself any sooner? Probably not. Reading For Today I Am a Boy (hereafter Boy) reminds that a lifetime of self-loathing makes for a rocky road to self-discovery.
Boy makes my heart ache. It takes me back to those foggy 20 years I so often want to draw the blinds on. Ms. Fu captures moments from the lives of me and my friends with eery clarity. Both the parts that make for good copy (overcoming adversity!) and the less rosy parts (hating and working against people who have what you want). I finished it 24 hours after starting it, in part because it has been long enough since I came out that I had forgotten so many of these formative feelings. I wanted more! I have the scars, okay sure, but the woundings had been lost to me. While this makes my time with it sound like a masochistic free-for-all, I simply was hungry to feel that person who I was for so long. The me before me gets hazier all the time, and it's important to never completely forget the wall I scaled to get here.
There is a moment when our lead finds a friend who doesn't raise an eyebrow at a young boy wanting the body of a fit, athletic woman. It is so infinitesimal a thing, and yet those teeny tiny instances of tacit acceptance/acknowledgement/understanding were all the table scraps my heart had to feed on for years. Trying on a garter I caught at a wedding, it tears, I decide instantly this means I'm too fat and that I'll only break any woman's thing I ever touch and that it's a sign and that I should never think about it again. And I throw it away. Memories, such memories kept coming back to me as I wolfed the book down.
For people who haven't had these kinds of experiences, the book seems like it could be a lantern illuminating a rich mine of agonizing discomfort. Discomfort is one of this book's guiding stars. Not surgery, hormones, or any of the glitzy, ooh and ahhing material that people commonly associate with transition. Instead, the slow burn nightmare that precedes everything. That hot, awful, languishing sensation that drags on for years and the powerlessness we feel to stop it. The secret notion that it would be better to survive in safe misery than gamble with our life for a day in the sunshine. It is so difficult to capture gnawing lust paired with a ironclad abstinence without toppling the believability of a character's actions, but in Boy's lead I see it done.
I'm struggling to switch from my heart to my brain long enough to explain why this is a four star book. Boy often chooses to tantalize rather than realize. So little dialogue is apportioned any character, the cast subsisting on a diet of unspoken desires, that it is often too mysterious why anyone does anything. You can call it the nature of the Huang family or you can call it showing and not telling, but less isn't always more. Or, when our main character finally meets others within the community, the events happen so fast that most of the issues raised dissipate as quickly as they form.
There is also the rare but occasional burst of energy in the opposite direction, where the author seems to lose faith in her audience for a moment and explains too much. Such as a moment where, it is explained, the answer "Yes" in a given instance could refer to all of the previous options given or just one. These nitpicks stand out mainly because the book is so very tuned into its style and its mission that I was surprised to see the crack in the armor.
I see myself coming back to this book a lot, for both the language is a pleasure and because it can take me on a travelogue through parts of my own life. Any gripes I have pale in comparison the wellspring of emotions it has unearthed for me, and I recommend it very highly. Thank you, Ms. Fu. -
This novel gives you a good understanding of what a transgender or intersex person may feel like, especially if for most of their life they haven't the opportunity to explore their gender.
Before I read the book, I wasn't even comfortable with the idea, but this book really helped me understand how a person like this feels.
In the book, it's not even talked about whether Peter is intersex or transgender or what.
The only hint we get is that Peter has a very small penis when he is born. His parents have had girls only and really want a boy, so they label him a boy. Less obvious evidence like hormones, genes, or chromosomes are never discussed and Peter might not even know. All we know is that pretty early on he figures out that he feels he's a girl.
The book touches on many issues while still being easy to read, and it has a nice ending. I had to cry :)
It's a great intro into the topic if you are uncomfortable!
But on its own its definitely incomplete.
It's been months since I read the book and I just saw a documentary that helped me learn a lot about gender identity. It filled in a lot of the facts, while still also dealing with feelings and problems that intersex and transgender people have to deal with. The documentary is called Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric (2017). The description says: An exploration of gender identity features interviews with experts and everyday people.
She defines and explains intersex and transgender, talks to families with transgender children, teens, and transgender seniors, explores medical issues, and more. She covers a lot in just two hours! I think it's a documentary that anyone who is openminded would appreciate, but that I would even recommend to my very "conservative" friends. -
I wanted to like this book about an MtF individual, to give it a five-star rating, but there was a surprising distance held between me and the first-person narrator. I felt a constant "juuuust out of reach" to the narrator's emotions. Perhaps it was the method of delivery, the "snapshot" path, instead of linear? Or was it the excessive (dull) symbolism and attempts at highbrow "look at me, I'm lit-er-a-ture"? I also dislike the story style of one MC who interacts with a plethora of characters--it is a brave choice for an author because, with all these characters who are supposed to be important but end up being annoying and distracting, it is exceedingly hard to keep me committed to even the main MC.
But! All that said, I would still recommend it to anyone, even if just to try reading it. The topic is important and widely misunderstood. The story can only help illuminate people to greater wisdom and empathy. -
Fantastic, emotional read that took me places I didn’t expect to go, especially as it neared the end. I thought the writing was truly excellent and the storyline felt very real to me. I loved this book - one I think will join the list of “very giftable books.” So far my best read of 2021.
-
DNF page 19
The 2014 literary novel, "For Today I Am a Boy," by Kim Fu, won a lot of awards. The story narrates the childhood and coming-of-age of a Chinese-Canadian boy named Peter who "knows he is really a girl." The book is a transgender bildungsroman set amidst the misogynistic and transphobic nightmare of a traditionalist Chinese family. The novel is narrated in first-person.
In elementary school, Peter and a group of his male friends sexually assault a little girl named Shauna. The boys violate her under a set of bleachers.
"Roger dragged Shauna there by the arm. Our feet crunched on the gravel. We herded her toward the back of the hollow, blocking the entrance with our bodies." (pg 17)
Shauna cries throughout the violation. "Not like I cried, not the way I heaved and sobbed into [Peter's sister] Adele's chest in a closet. Soundless tears, as though crying were impolite." (pg 17)
Shauna is alone, surrounded, and trapped. A boy named Roger tells Shauna to lift up her skirt. "She raised the hem of her skirt by the corners, not quickly, not slowly. With a knowing I hadn't expected. Like she'd done this before." (pg 17)
When I read those sentences, my heart stopped. I just could not f*cking BELIEVE that the novel would give a terrified little girl being sexually assaulted a description like that: that she is lifting her skirt "knowingly," as if she had "done it before."
Let me insert some reality into this moment: whether a human being is five (or six, or seven) years old like Shauna, or fifty-five years old or eighty-five years old, people of any gender who are being raped and tortured will often do what their attackers tell them to do. It is a basic function of terror and an aspect of survival.
Small children are especially prone to doing what they are told to do. Especially when they are in a terrifying situation like the sexual assault being described here. But Peter ascribes a "knowing" willingness to Shauna in this scene.
And the assault continues from there:
"Roger's eyes fixed to the spot. 'Peter, pull down her underwear.'
I looked into Shauna's eyes. My hands on her small hipbones. I tried to tell her that I was sorry. That we were both victims. I wanted her to see who I really was. The one who took a stone in the back. The one who combed his sisters' hair. In her eyes, I could see only the reflections of four attackers, four boys in that dead, marble blue, like you could see the sky right through her."
Whose job is it to wordlessly understand that Peter is a victim, according to the narrative voice of this book? The sexual-assault-victim's job, of course. Right at the moment when she is being violated. Peter wants Shauna to see that he is a victim of the bullies just as much as she is. The "bullies" here are Peter's school friends, the group he spends time with daily.
While I do understand that many bullies *are* the victims of bullies, the LAST place I want to see that being pointed out is while a little girl is being sexually assaulted in-scene by four little boys.
I cannot handle the fact that this novel is equalizing Peter's trauma as a little boy who has NEVER been sexually assaulted with a little girl who is currently being sexually assaulted in-scene.
If you are the type of reader who finds prose like this completely appropriate, and you agree with Peter's adult-looking-back-on-his-life narrative voice, and you believe that being the victim of sexual assault by a group of boys is equal to being a little boy who suffers the "roughhouse play" of his elementary-school friends, then you will most likely enjoy this novel a lot more than I ever could.
While I found this scene horrifying enough, it's not even finished. The author continues to drag out Shauna's violation this way:
"There. Shauna's ankles bound together. A bald, pink wound.
Shauna's legs trembled and then buckled. She hit the ground on her knees. Her skirt pooled protectively over her thighs. Better to be one of us, better to be standing on this side than kneeling and weeping in the gravel while they leer, that was all my father wanted from me, to be one of them, to be a king.
But I belonged in her place, holding something so stunning they'd steal for it, they'd stare into its hot center even as it blinded them." (pgs 17-18)
Let me be clear: these four little boys are not being "blinded" by the "stunning" sight of Shauna's vulva and vagina. They are performing an act of domination over her. They are not "stealing" anything from her or anyone else in this moment. They are subjugating a victim in an act of sexual assault.
This act has nothing to do with Shauna as a person. It also has nothing to do with her individual vulva and vagina.
Rape culture presents rape in this way: that women and their vaginas are so alluring to men that men cannot help themselves but to attack and rape women. According to rape culture, when women are raped, they have a "knowing" awareness of what is happening to them; even little girls as young as Shauna "know" that their vaginas are magical and that boys willingly want to "blind" themselves by looking at the "bald, pink wounds" between their legs and raping them.
Peter might be a little boy in this scene, but the narrative first-person voice is an adult voice looking back on this childhood, narrating the events of his life for the reader. Even as a transgender adult who has become a woman, Peter's narrative voice is steeped in rape culture.
When Peter gets home that night, Shauna's mother has called his parents. His parents know what Peter and his friends did to Shauna. Peter's mother yells at him in Cantonese (which Peter doesn't speak or understand), and then his mother slaps him once in the face. She immediately walks out of the room. Peter's father rewards him by smiling approvingly and then forcing Peter's two sisters to share a room so Peter can have his own bedroom. (pg 19)
I am someone who completely supports the LGBTQIA+ community and sympathizes with transgender children and transgender adults in all ways.
But when the book portrays a transgender boy participating in a gang-rape against a little girl, and then demands that the reader equalize Peter's trauma "earning his bully credentials with his bros" with their gang-rape victim's trauma, I just fucking can't with this.
Fuck this book. Fuck this messaging. DNF.
One star.
It truly sickens me that this book won so many awards. -
If this hadn't been a book chosen by one of my Goodreads groups, I probably wouldn't have picked this up on my own because I can be sort of lazy about contemporary novels unless there's so much chatter about something that I can't ignore it, and just to shut everyone up I will read it. That's not so much the case here, though I'm surprised there isn't more chatter about this book.
Peter Huang is a boy amongst a family of sisters. His family moved to Canada from China, and his father is what many of us consider to be a stereotypical Asian father - a bit cold, wanting more for his children than he could have, and placing an immense pressure on his wife to have a male child. Peter is the third child, better late than never, and then came another girl, so Peter grows up with sisters and essentially considers himself one of them. Because a male who identifies as a female is not appropriate behavior for a boy in the eyes of his more conservative parents, Peter grows up in an uncomfortable silence with himself about what he feels, what he wants, where he wants to go with his life. There's confliction galore here.
As the children grow and ultimately move to different places of the world, we see pieces of their lives through the eyes of Peter, while simultaneously getting to learn about Peter's place in the world as well. As he grows, he comes to terms with his feelings for the same gender, but is still conflicted with what that means about how he views himself.
The story moves quickly. I found it disorienting that each chapter was meant to be a significant leap forward in time, so there seemed to be a lot of unanswered questions about the other sisters, even though Fu spent quality time showing us their lives after they left home. They all, in their own ways, know what Peter is earlier and better than Peter himself knows what he is.
In addition to the leaps through time, the ending of the story felt rushed and sudden to me. I knew where it was going throughout, and I'm glad Peter took the steps he ultimately did and was able to join his sisters the way she was meant to be, but for all of the tension throughout the story felt a bit anticlimactic in the end because it was just over.
Still, for a debut novel, I have no other real complaints and would be interested in reading more books by Kim Fu because clearly there is a talent there. I am eager to see where her writing takes her from here. -
Initial Thoughts...
I think it took Peter a long time to find where home was, but once she did, I was happy.
Later Thoughts...
I took me a long time to think about what rating I would give this book, For Today I Am a Boy, mostly because I had to let the story sink in. It's not a linear story, nor is it particularly easy to read Peter's tough journey from perceiving her identity as a child to becoming her authentic self as an adult. The book has its bright spots, though. And the ending is so satisfying. -
A short read about growing up in the wrong body. I found myself very moved by the simplistic presentation of Peter's feelings as he goes through life.
There is a lot going on here: with the Chinese emigrant family in Canada, the culture "wash" enforced by their father, yet that same culture allowing for many restrictions in the home, and Peter's struggle with self. There's also a great cast of characters in the sisters, and the relationships between all the family members.
A good read. -
This book had a fairly loose plot, but it's basically the story of Peter, the only boy in a Chinese American family. His father expects him to be a man and has extremely high hopes and standards for him, but what Peter really wants is to be a girl. The story covers a few decades of his life, showing scene snippets here and there, and just kind of shows how his life unfolds.
The writing in here was very polished. The author's bio notes that she has a MFA, and this writing degree shows. Clearly she spent a lot of time honing the words to this story and making it easy and quick to read.
The main problem with this book, however, is that while the writing is very polished, it never actually tells an interesting story. The scenes were so short and jumped around that I never got a good grasp of any of the characters and really didn't care about them. There was absolutely no emotional connection to anyone or anything in here. Near the beginning of the book, Peter tells the reader that in elementary school, when he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, all he wanted to be was a mommy. This was basically the only indication throughout the book that he was struggling with conflicted feelings. Everything else was so detached, so superficial, that I never actually believed he felt anything. It was difficult for me to care about his plight when it barely seemed like Peter had any feelings for much of the story.
In lieu of developing Peter's emotional journey, much of the book detailed experiences that Peter's family members had. These scenes weren't necessarily related to Peter's own story, or any sort of general plot, but seemed to exist only to fill the pages and show the reader more dynamics and perspectives inside of Peter's family. A few scenes were maybe interesting here and there, but they were completely unnecessary and ultimately forgettable because they didn't truly fit with the main theme of Peter's internal gender struggle.
A lot of characters were introduced, featured in a few scenes, and then disappeared. No reason was given for their disappearance from the page, but I guess it was to show how people sometimes just disappear from your life. If this was indeed the purpose, it didn't make an impact. The story was incredibly fragmented and quite dull. It was also a fairly quick read, due in part to its fairly short length. It's too bad the book wasn't expanded to include more emotional scenes and less filler material. Regardless of how polished the writing is, if a book doesn't tell much of a story, it seems pointless.
I feel like the author set out to tell the story of a girl born in a boy's body and the difficult journey this caused. Unfortunately, this book barely skimmed the surface of this theme and only seemed to details blips in the life of a family that I never quite got a handle on. Not terrible, but incredibly underwhelming. -
This is a book that I really wanted to like a lot. The topic interested me and I looked forward to reading it. However, I was disappointed with the book's choppiness and it's lack of depth in characterization. Most of the characters seemed like cookie-cutter personalities without a lot of development.
The story is about Peter, born into a male body but feeling always like he is a girl. He wishes he was his lovely sister Adele or Audrey Hepburn. Peter's is born into a first generation Chinese family in Fort Michel, Canada. He knows little about his family's ancestry and they want him to assimilate. His father has forbidden his mother from speaking Cantonese in the house. He is the only boy of four children. His father wants him to be a 'boy's boy', into athletics and playing with male toys. This, however, is not Peter. His childhood days are most happy when he dresses in his sisters' clothes or puts on their make-up.
Peter loves to cook and clean house. His mother works part-time some days and Peter rushes home from school, takes off all his clothes, and puts on his mother's apron over his nude body. He then cleans house while singing. His sister, Bonnie, is supposed to do the cooking but Peter loves being a chef and he cooks for her. They pretend that Bonnie did the cooking.
The book is very fragmented and goes from scene to scene without much continuity. Characters are introduced and then not heard from again after a chapter or two. I found this disappointing. The message of the book is clear - Peter is transgendered and needs affirmation from life. "My real body was somewhere else, waiting for me. It looked like my sisters' bodies." However, the delivery of the message, through the words of this novel, are garbled and confusing. I liked some of Ms. Fu's writing and at times it could be beautiful. I attribute my disappointment to her youth and this being a first novel. I look forward to more mature writing in the future. -
Full disclosure: My educational background is in gender studies and I've focused quite a bit on trans studies. That's probably a huge part of why my mother-in-law (also a feminist with a major love of can lit) sent this novel to me as part of a birthday package (thanks, Shelley!).
I saw a lot of myself in the John/Eileen characters at the end of the book--those privileged enough to come from accepting backgrounds, with access to copious amounts of theoretical literature and activist circles. Because of my own particular context, it was really enlightening to have a specifically 2nd gen Canadian (especially as the child of parents who were immigrants from China) perspective on issues of gender and sexuality. I forget that people with trans identities exist everywhere, and often in situations where they don't even have access to language that names aspects of their lives and selves.
I really appreciated the exploration of how cruelty doesn't have to be obvious abuse, that the absence of love in the family of origin ripples out for the rest of one's life.
The protagonist's process of becoming/unbecoming Peter and emerging as Audrey is distinctly different from traditional trans narratives -- very little time is spent on the physical transition, Audrey is a kernel of an ideal rather than a character for most of the story.
My sole real criticism of the book echoes what many others have said -- I don't find that the story is served by the non-linearity. I think I can understand what Fu is trying to craft (the process of finding oneself is hardly linear, pain and fear tend to ricochet through life), but I found the time jumps very disorienting and at times frustrating.
All in all, however, I would say this is a great piece of modern Canadian literature. -
I enjoyed this book, but it was a very gentle read. Not that there's anything wrong with that - there just weren't a lot of peaks and troughs, with the tone being somewhat lighter than it could have been, given the subject matter. It's quite difficult to review a book that is more-or-less all about atmosphere.
It actually reminded me quite a lot of another book I read recently,
Ghost Tide, which was rather unfortunate timing on my part. The other book similarly focussed on the life of a Chinese boy who grew up knowing that he was in the wrong body for his true gender, and it had a similarly dreamy quality about it. While Ghost Tide was set in a Chinese village, and this book is set in a Canadian small town, there aren't that many major differences to set the two books apart in my mind. What this book lacks in the spiritual allegory of the other, it makes up for in other ways, mainly the portrayal of family relationships.
The main character in this book, Peter, has oddly distant yet worshipful relationships with his three sisters, which I found both quirky and compelling. Peter's hero-worship of his older, cosmopolitan sister - the two of them on different continents, exchanging wordless post-packs of random photographs and artefacts - was quite poignant. Likewise, the ending was quite beautiful and unexpected.
This is a solid novel about family relationships and identity, just not a particular stand-out for me. -
This review can also be found on my blog,
leafandpage.
Wow. Just wow.
I started crying in the last few pages, and I have been on the verge of tears since. This was a beautiful book, it really was. It was heartfelt and sweet and tragic. There were so many wonderful, touching moments, and so many moments of hurt.
I think what's important to note is that, while the main character is Trans, that is not ultimately what this book is about. It's crucial to the story, absolutely, it's extremely important and it undercuts every moment, every dialogue. But it's about more than that, too.
It's about loneliness.
While Peter's story is the central one, the one we follow, hers is not the only one we know. All three of her sisters suffer, for various reasons. Their parents, especially their mother. It's a book about isolation and feeling trapped-- in your marriage, in your town, in your job, in your body.
And it's a book about people reaching out to each other. Not always successfully, but there is friendship and family and support. Sometimes that support is misguided or hurts more than it helps.
Sometimes people can be wonderful and kind. Sometimes they can be terrible. And while this book has its flaws-- as some people have noted, it can sometimes be hard to follow exactly when we are-- but ultimately it was a beautiful book. -
You know when you finish a book and you're too overwhelmed or busy or Internetless to write a review and suddenly it's ten days later and you have no idea what to write anymore?
Yeah.
This book is all about atmosphere, and Fu does atmosphere like a fucking pro. It's suffocating and entirely too miserable to be fun, and at the same time it's incredibly vivid and colourful. It's a patchwork of memories and feelings, and they're not in any particular order that the reader can see, but that's probably why they work so well, slowly building a crystal clear impression of a life in your mind.
I can't fathom Peter's way of life, because I'm unoppressed, integrated and comfortable in my own skin, yet I get it. And that speaks highly of Kim Fu's skill.
The only thing I couldn't properly connect with is the final resolution, which pretty much came out of the blue even though it's the only possible ending. You'll expect it, but you'll still feel a little disoriented by the suddenness of its arrival.
But it will make you feel at peace, and even though it won't erase all the pain of the years before it, it will make up for some of it. And that's really all you could wish for. -
This book was so devastating and beautifully written. I was so engrossed in Peter’s life. I loved how the author stayed authentic and truthful about Peter’s internal dilemmas, her complicated feelings about other women and sex, being desirable to men as a trans woman, etc. The ending was really lovely. Definitely recommend
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Note: Because the author of this book is cisgender, I decided to read several reviews from readers who are transgender to see how they felt about this book before writing my own review. I found that while some transgender readers felt that they could strongly connect to the experiences of the main character and deeply appreciated the representation, others felt that the story was too dramatic and created a sense of tragedy that felt demeaning. With that being said, be aware that this book is not for everyone and it may even be triggering to some people. However, also be aware that some people do strongly connect to the experiences portrayed (although this is a work of fiction) and consider this to be an extremely important novel. I hope with this knowledge you can make an appropriate decision regarding how you will interact with this novel. Although I enjoyed it, I would not recommend it to everyone, especially if they feel that it would make them uncomfortable.
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This is a beautiful and haunting novel that paints a portrait of the life of a Chinese-Canadian transgender woman. This is SUCH an important novel because novels with transgender main characters are unfortunately sparse, and novels with transgender women of colour as main characters are even sparser.
After flipping through some of the pages, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this novel is not a YA contemporary as I expected it to be, but rather a gorgeously written work of adult literary fiction. The descriptions on every page are absolutely poetic and the melancholic tone of the novel really resonated with me.
Each chapter is written in a thematic way rather than a strictly linear way, which I found to be a unique and captivating way to tell a story. Rather than reading about Audrey (born Peter) as she grew up over the years with each chapter showing her getting older, the novel implemented periods of flashbacks and flashforwards in almost a stream of consciousness based on significant themes that created a continuous strand through Audrey's life.
I am pleased that books like this exist, and I am looking forward to finding more books with prominent transgender characters. -
Originally posted on my blog,
A Lovely Bookshelf on the Wall:
Kim Fu handles the transgender perspective in For Today I Am a Boy with the utmost care. This is not a radical, explosive book meant to shock its audience. Instead, it centers on Peter's thoughts, feelings, and experiences as he tells us about his childhood, his loved ones, and his coming of age, in his own voice. There are a number of subtle but powerful moments that made me forget this is a work of fiction; much of the time it reads like a memoir.
Fu attains the perfect balance between creating interesting, complex characters without turning them into clichés. Especially when it comes to Peter, this maintains the story's reliability.
"Who were these kids? What right had they to be born into a world where they were taught to look endlessly into themselves . . . To ask themselves, and not be told, whether they were boys or girls? You eat what's there or you starve."
I was glad that Peter, with all the turmoil he faced, did have a few people in his life who completely accepted him without question, who didn't try to change him. I'm not sure how realistic that is for most transgender people, but it certainly added an element of hope throughout the story.
Approached with sensitivity and free of stereotypes, For Today I Am a Boy explores how who we are (and the discovery of who we are) plays into our sense of self, the path we take in life, and our family dynamics. This is a coming of age story well worth reading.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. -
The only son among three sisters in a Chinese Canadian family, Peter Huang is under enormous pressure to live up to his father’s ideals of Western masculinity. However, Peter struggles with his father’s expectations, for he knows in his heart that he is really a girl.
This book wasn’t quite what I expected, but I don’t like it less for that. This is not an “issue” book about what it means to be transgender. It doesn’t contain gender theory or a deep internal struggle with identity. It’s about family relationships and the coming-of-age of a character who just happens to be transgender. Peter’s gender is just part of his character — like it is for all of us — and not a defining characteristic. I really appreciated Fu’s treatment of her narrator. In making Peter’s gender just one aspect of his character, she shows him the respect and empathy he deserves — that we all deserve. She makes him well balanced, relatable, and oh so human.
I also loved how Fu portrays Peter’s relationship with his sisters. Their sibling relationships felt real, and as a family they have their ups and downs.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to diversify their reading. For Today I Am a Boy is a fresh portrayal of a transgender boy growing up in a small-town Chinese Canadian family and later facing the world on his own in a major city.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
Read the full review on Books Speak Volumes. -
Review copy: library
I’ll be honest. I was hooked in by the cover design, which is gorgeous. (It looks even more beautiful in person.) When I read the description, I thought — I’ve got to read this. I read For Today I Am a Boy on a three hour train ride. When I got off the train, I still had the last quarter of the book to go, so I walked about the city in a daze, still reading.
For Today I Am a Boy matches its cover — it’s beautifully written and utterly heartbreaking. The story of Peter’s life, from her childhood to her thirties, is told in a series of memories, conversations, and moments all woven together. While far from straightforward and linear, it’s still very easy to fall into the rhythm and flow of the story.
At first glance, For Today I Am a Boy seems to be an issue novel about growing up as a transgender girl, but it’s not quite that. Though Peter yearns to be the girl she knows she is, the pressure and influence of her father forces her to conform to his standards of masculinity, even as her sisters’ flee from their father’s control. This is a story as much about sisterhood and culture as it is about gender identity.
I would hesitate to say that For Today I Am a Boy is strictly Young Adult literature, but I wouldn’t call it adult literature either. (What defines YA lit, anyway?) That being said, the categorization is unimportant. For Today I Am a Boy is a beautiful and incredible read that I would absolutely recommend to just about everyone.
Recommendation: Buy it now!
Review originally posted at Rich in Color
http://richincolor.com/2014/03/review...
