Luna Response

I was really excited to start reading Luna. I am a big supporter of GLBT rights, to the point where I get really emotional about it. I get really upset whenever I hear about students’ suicides in the news because they were bullied for being gay, or another set-back in making marriage a legal right for all consenting adults. I have too many friends who are affected by this mindless hate.

I know too many good people who perpetrate this kind of hate, too; they don’t mean to be discriminating or hateful, they just believe they are standing up for their own convictions. For example, my father is a great guy. He’s very loving, a great father to my sister and me and now a great grandfather to my niece and nephew. He’s very caring and would sacrifice many things so that his family would do better. My father, however, doesn’t understand the queer rights movement. He believes it’s wrong and there’s no other way to argue about it. It is against God to not be heterosexual.

This is why I was so excited about this book. To me, I saw it as a gateway to get readers to understand the confusion of gender identity our friends, family members and peers feel. I was excited to see a text that explained the lack of choice in having a different gender identity or sexual preference. The reader sees Liam and his two choices: pretend to be something he’s not and be miserable, or become the woman she is meant to be, be more self-confident and have a better life. The circumstances the book presented makes Luna’s choice easy. Of course, she should have her sexual reassignment surgery: what’s the point for her to live as Liam?

I do have to say that after reading the book, I have mixed feelings about it. I was so happy that it put a necessary topic out there for teens to think about; unfortunately, I thought the book quality was a little sub par to what we have been reading. I think I have become a little spoiled with the fantastic books we have been reading throughout the semester; this book’s writing just seemed a little flat compared to them. I could not picture the character’s in my heads; their predicaments seemed a little contrived to me (really, Liam just has all this money? I know he’s earned it, but in reality, Peters wants me to just swallow that he has $100,000 sitting around?) or a little stereotypical (sports-crazed dad, pill-popping mom).

I believe the book does improve towards the end. At first, Regan’s complete acceptance of Luna seems a little far-fetched to the reader with the type of GLBT-intolerant family background I come from. When Regan struggles with Luna’s needs, she seems like a more real character.
I feel as though I’ve bashed on this book too much; that’s not what I meant to do, because I am thankful to have read it and to be able to put it in my future classroom’s library. I think the distance from Liam’s or Luna’s thoughts were necessary, in a strange way, for the reader to accept his decision to leave and go through with his sexual reassignment surgery. I don’t want to admit it, but I think most readers (including me) would be put-off if the story were told through Liam’s point-of-view. I don’t feel like I could completely understand his gender confusion.

Regan, however, gives us the lens of Average Girl. We see her brother’s transformation through her eyes and we are more able to accept it. She accepts him, loves him, gets frustrated by him, but most importantly, supports him. He’s a loving guy who only wants to have the life he’s meant to have. As a reader, how could we read this and reject him? It makes us feel guilty. Thank you, Julie Anne Peters, for giving LBGT teenagers a voice. I hope some kids learn some extended definitions of compassion from her books.