My brother’s name is Jessica

Written by: John Boyne

“Touching”

Summary

The brothers Sam & Jason have always been best friends. But when Jason confesses that he would rather be a girl, the brothers drift apart. This announcement is a huge shock for the family. The issues surrounding Jason are blocking their mother’s political ambitions. The family is not accepting at all and therefore Jason decides to go and live with his aunt, where he can be himself. Sam is not sure how to cope with this and is very confused. At one point, Sam gets so confused he does something that he will surely regret later.

Review

This book is written in a fluent manner, which is why I read this book in a day. However, I expected more from this book. This book kept popping up on internet as the “latest and best book” but for me, that book did not fit that description.

I thought the style of this book was a bit more suitable for a younger reader. Even though this book is written from a child’s perspective, I still expected a more mature style of writing, because the subject of this book is very mature.

John Boyne’s writing style is still very pleasant because it’s easy to read. Nevertheless, I would have liked to see a more mature style of writing for such a serious and heavy topic. Besides that, I do think it’s a good thing that more and more books around this subject are being released. The more books, the more wisdom, right?

Conclusion

I would definetely recommend this book if you like these kinds of topics because it is written from another point of view than you’d expect. Because of the simple writing style, this book is suitable for YA-readers, or even readers younger than that.