Episode 008: Gracefully Grayson
“Grayson Sender has been holding onto a secret for what seems like forever: "he" is a girl on the inside, stuck in the wrong gender's body. The weight of this secret is crushing, but sharing it would mean facing ridicule, scorn, rejection or worse.
Despite the risks, Grayson's true self itches to break free. Will new strength from unexpected places be enough to help Grayson step into the spotlight she was born to inhabit?”
Ami Polonsky is both a writer and a middle-school English teacher and have another book that touches on being non-binary, so we may come across them again further along on this podcast!
This week we are reviewing Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky, a story about a story of a teenager auditioning for a school play while coming to acceptance with her gender. I decided that for International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia it would be good to look at a book where we get examples of transphobia and homophobia, not just from external sources but also from those within our own household. Since the 2022 theme is “Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Rights'', it felt even more important to discuss a book that deals with someone having to stand up to their peers and family to be who they are.
You can either listen to the podcast above, or you can read below for a majority of the transcript of the podcast! Now as always, our discussion will begin with a brief summary of the book followed by spoiler free thoughts and feelings about the book. This will be followed by an in-depth discussion of some of the key plot points that occurred and we will then finish off with my overall rating of the book and a heads up about what we are looking at next time. If you have not had a chance to read Gracefully Grayson and don’t want to hear any spoilers, then please feel free to skip the detailed section and listen to it afterwards if you so wish.
Overall this felt like an interesting story to read about someone affirming their gender identity, at first through the school play auditions and then again having to deal with the reactions of everyone around them. It was actually the reason I wanted to cover this for International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, since it does follow Grayson having to stand up against society and be firm about:
their body and how they want to present,
that it is their life and they can choose to live it as they wish,
and that they have a right to a safe educational environment!
The book was quite easy to get through, since it is aimed at a younger reader audience (say early teens), meaning the writing is fairly straightforward, the vocabulary isn’t too flowery, and things move at a reasonable pace. This meant I was able to finish it within the one weekend, so it was a nice quick read but maybe felt a little light when compared to other books I have read (probably since I am a fair bit older and more read than the intended audience).
The representation in the book is interesting, since we do get to have the first person experience of Grayson as they are going through their emotions about identifying as a girl and how they are processing the feelings around this and on how others react to them. It felt quite believable and true to how I remember growing up as a young queer kid, so I do think the author has put a lot of thought into how to make this relatable to the intended audience.
My one criticism of the book is the fact that throughout the entire work, we do have Grayson being misgendered as a “he” from both her school peers and her family. It isn’t necessarily an issue to start with as we have Grayson coming to terms with her gender, but as we progress through the book it is an issue that isn’t dealt with, with everyone still referring to Grayson as a boy and people even just assuming they are gay and making homophobic comments at their expense. This was frustrating as someone who is big on making sure people use the right pronouns for people, so to have this aspect of gender identity not addressed was irksome.
Final Feelings and Recommendation
In terms of recommending this to people, I would say that it is maybe best for younger people as the writing style makes it easier for early teen readers to get to grips with the novel and provides them a way to understand what they may be going through themselves. I would also say if you are someone who has younger people in the household then this is maybe a good quick read for you to get a view into what those younger people might be going through and how to handle them being their own person.
However if you are an older reader who has no young people in the household like myself, then it’s maybe easier to give this one a miss as we will most likely come across other books that deal with this topic in a more complex view that is aimed at our reading level.
I would say this is a 5 out of 10 charity shop dresses. The story itself is fairly straightforward and goes by fairly quickly, so I did feel I sped through the world created by the author. I am also left with a slight frustration at the way it ends when it feels like there could have been more to explore in the story, but I get this was aimed at younger readers as a way to introduce this topic for discussion, so if I was younger my rating would be slightly higher.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Now, just a reminder that at this point, I will be going into a more detailed analysis of the book which means there will be spoilers! If you haven’t managed to read Gracefully Grayson yet and you don’t want anything spoiled, then this is your last chance to avoid the discussion. Or you can go ahead and close the page, go read the book and then come back afterwards to finish reading. I promise I won’t mind. Still here? Well then, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The first part of the book acts as an introduction into Grayson’s world, giving us an insight into who they are at school and how they admit they will draw dresses in the margins of their notes in secret and that they have certain coloured pens they will avoid to stop people asking questions. So right away we see the typical thing that can happen to queer kids while growing up, in that we can recognise certain things our peers will judge us for because society has come up with some arbitrary rules, and so we go out of our way to then adjust our behaviour to hide our true selves.
We soon meet the new girl, Amelia, who has an awkward bus ride with Grayson but eventually they seem to make a shaky start to a friendship. It’s here we find out about how Grayson will always eat lunch alone in the library, again a showing of how queer kids isolate themselves to help protect themselves from their peers, but that with Amelia they are invited to join things in the lunchroom, giving us the hope that now that Grayson has bonded with someone, she can start to build those safe relationships around them to be themselves.
Unfortunately Grayson’s grandmother passes away and the family has a funeral fairly soon after then, and we also see that Amelia had ditched Grayson to hang out with the popular girls one weekend. This all acts to once again provide that stimulus for Grayson to isolate themselves from everyone and hide at school once again. It is a shame that there are many queer kids out there who will be isolated out of fear of being themselves and getting outed and treated horribly, which is one of the key reasons why we need to end homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and all other prejudices we pass on to kids. It has an negative impact on queer kids growing up having to constantly hide themselves and leads to so many issues, all in the name of no reason!
When we get to the auditions, Grayson does ask both teachers there if she can read for Persephone and although they seem a bit hesitant, eventually they do agree for Grayson to do so. Obviously I think the key thing that people should be considering when casting for a role is how the person captures the character, rather than what their gender may be. In the past men played all the roles in plays (cause of course the Patriarchy was fine with men dressing at women at some point when it kept people disenfranchised), so the fact that we are now in a position where people get so caught up in this idea again is silly.
Part two takes us through what happens after the audition, where Grayson now has to wait to find out if they will be selected for the part. While we wait out this drama, we see that she tries to mend bridges with Amelia and they both decide to go shopping together for clothes. Unfortunately we then have Amelia catching Grayson looking at themselves in a mirror while wearing a dress and she kinda freaks out. It is a shame this is her reaction to Grayson literally just wearing clothes she is happy in, but there was a slight bit of sighing at the set up since for the whole of the novel so far, Grayson has been so careful about giving things away to people and here it just felt like they had given up caring for 5 minutes or something. I can get that eventually we can all slip up when we have to constantly continue with a task of hiding ourselves, but it just felt slightly convenient for the plot to add more tension in.
So Grayson gets home and is all freaked out about what will happen since they rode the bus in silence, and they then see that she has letters her Grandmother had kept for her. As Grayson reads the letters from her mother, she finds out that when they were much younger they would also say they were a girl and would wear a tutu, with the picture provided as part of the letter. During this, there seems to be a weird change happening and it's not super clear if Grayson is actually sick or if she is freaking out during this revelation, which did take me out of the story slightly as it confused me.
But we get the vibe that the teacher has phoned to advise Grayson’s aunt and uncle about them being chosen for the role of Persephone and what this could mean, and that when they have entered to discuss this they have then also read the letters on the bed. Now I understand they may have been curious, especially if Grayson seemed to be ill or freaking out, but there still needs to be privacy granted to young people to allow them the space to tell you things when they feel comfortable, so I was understandably frustrated at this invasion of privacy.
It’s here we see the transphobia rear its head within Grayson’s own household. While Uncle Evan seems supportive of them and is trying to help them out by offering to run lines and spend time understanding Grayson, Aunt Sally fails to provide that safe environment. They are confused at the situation and instead of taking the time to speak to Grayson to better understand what they are going through, Sally is stubborn and hopes that Grayson changes her mind, always while framing it as trying to avoid them being bullied. It’s a shame that Aunt Sally doesn’t realise she is gaslighting Grayson by trying to make it seem as if her terrible behaviour is all for the sake of Grayson rather than societal transphobia they have accepted as truth.
It’s not long after getting confirmed for the part that the bullying starts. From having classmates and others around the school now calling her Gracie in a taunting way while others such as Ryan, Tyler, and Sebastian all act like dickheads, aiming to make every interaction they have one of intimidation and nastiness. And although some realise they are being unfair and bitter due to the casting choices, and eventually apologies for being rude to Grayson, others do escalate the situation later on. Thankfully Grayson does also have friends that start to form around them as they get involved in the school play, having chances to have the other girls braid her hair and not spending lunchtimes alone anymore.
And as mentioned earlier, the homophobia and transphobia don’t just happen within the school setting. We see Jack continue his horrible behaviour at the dinner table at home with insults about Grayson, and things are tense between Grayson and Aunt Sally after having overheard her talking one night about how Grayson is choosing to make her own life difficult. It’s fair to say that having to deal with this hatred for who one is almost all the time is detrimental to any developing person!
Not only do we witness the homophobia and transphobia from the students, but we also see that this is a multi-generational problem in this novel. As soon as some of the parents, mainly Grayson’s aunt, have complained about how Mr Finnegan selected someone presenting as male to play a female role, we see further prejudices at play. Now at rehearsals, Dr. Shiner is watching as they occur, keeping an eye to make sure the queer teacher doesn’t start to influence any of the other kids, cause clearly Grayson isn’t their own person with her own mind to know who she is.
It really plays into that horrible lie that is told that queer adults will clearly ‘turn’ your kids, and so how can we possibly let them be teachers or left alone with impressionable youths for too long? Never mind the obscene amount of hetero-normative content pushed on kids almost from as soon as they are out the womb! It’s such a shame that someone who is passionate about their teaching career feels pushed out, and so they do let the kids know they are leaving to pursue a directing career in New York. It’s a shame the school loses a passionate teacher over a non-issue of who plays Persephone in the play, but I am glad that Mr. Finnegan charts his own path to happiness instead of allowing the bullies to win.
Eventually things escalate when Ryan, Tyler, and Jack all chase Grayson one afternoon, with it ending in Ryan and Tyler having pushed Grayson down a stairway and end up breaking her arm. The school rightly takes action against the two individuals, as Grayson chooses to not mention Jack in the incident to the principal. Part of me understands why since Jack did run off and wasn’t the worst offender, but it’s still hard for me to accept allowing any family member off the hook when they cause physical and emotional damage to another family member.
Grayson pushes ahead however, asks for a pink cast for their arm, and demands that they still participate in the school play that night. And although we don’t get a blow by blow of the play itself, we do hear that people accepted Grayson as the lead of Persephone and actually, it was really well cast. Just proving that bigotry might have stopped a talented individual getting involved in the play, and that people really need to check their own biases. Following on from the play Grayson has a letter from Mr. Finnegan stating that Grayson is brave and has taken risks, and that they should be proud of who they are and continue to do this, which allows us to see the happy ending after our main character has been through a lot in the short space of this book. It’s with this new found bravery that Grayson then feels more confident in wearing more feminine clothing at school and so we end with the semi-cliffhanger of them walking into the classroom, with who only knows what results. So in the end a happy ending reminding us of how brave it is for queer people to just be themselves in society at times, and although I would rather have a world where it wasn’t seen as brave to be our queer selves, I do appreciate the hopefully tone it strikes up for the intended readers.