T. Cooper

This is an easy book to misunderstand. On the surface, it seems like a whimsical story of a polar bear's career in Hollywood and New York. In the book's last paragraph, though, the polar bear/narrator tells us "I knew the whole time I was telling this story that it was a cover for the real story, which for some reason I still find impossible to tell." Cooper likes to do this, put in an ending that messes with everything that's gone before (See his novel "Lipshitz 6"). If we take that show more sentence seriously, if we read this story as a cover for another, then it seems possible -- maybe necessary -- to read this as a story about an outsider fitting in, gaining success not for what they've done but for the fashionableness of who they are. How do you play the role of token? What room is there in that for real expression of self? The book can then be read as a sophisticated narrative whose humor -- and it has lots of it -- becomes a melancholy, wry sort, and the ending all the more beautiful.

Or you can read it as a story about a polar bear in Hollywood. show less

When I first picked up Changers I thought it was going to be another book where the synopsis lured me in only to be disappointed. But I'm glad I kept reading. Changers is about a boy named Ethan who moves to a different state at the start of his freshman year of high school. Ethan finds out he's turned into a female when he wakes up for his first day of school. This is obviously not how he planned to start things off at a new school. Ethan is a member of an ancient race of humans who change show more once every year for four years during high school (and you thought going through high school as one person was hard enough).

“Listen to me: you cannot tell anybody who or what you are.”
But I don't even know what I am, I think.

In any other hands, this story could have been eye-roll worthy full of boob and pms'ing jokes. But Cooper and Glock-Cooper transition from a typical teenage boy to someone adjusting to a new life, making more than what it appears on the outside. Changers is a story of the struggle of finding one's identity wrapped in a science fiction package. I look forward to reading about who Ethan-Drew changes into next. show less

Messy, silly, painful and odd--exactly like the experience of being a teenager! I was surprised by how layered this book is. for instance, the premise of changing your body each year of high school doesn't just represent gender transition and living as a minority, but also the experience of changing and becoming a different person as you grow up. Another example is the interesting way that the organization that monitors changers' transitions functions as both a force for moral good and a show more fairly oppressive, out-of-touch institution in Drew's life in a complicated way. It's easy to imagine that a book like this could be trite, but because it digs so deep it never is.

Beyond that, I really like the characters and their relationships to one another, especially Audrey and Drew. I like the way that the novel shows how life as a teenager is horribly unfair and wonderfully exciting at the same time. I love how queer it is. I wish more books could be as interesting and full of heart as this one. show less

In the Changers series by T. Cooper and Allison Glock-Cooper Ethan is an unexceptional skateboarding videogame-playing teenager about to enter high school. Then he wakes up as a girl. Cue the freakout. It turns out he's a special kind of person called a Changer, and that he will start each year of high school with a different type of outer form. At the end, he gets to choose which one to be for the rest of his/her life. The already-existing Changers hope to change the world by spreading show more their acquired empathy. Ethan mainly wants to mentally survive the viciousness and intolerance of high school.

What a fascinating premise! I received Changers Book Four as an ER copy. My wife had loved and recommended the series, so I proceeded to read the first three and then this one. I loved the series, too. This is a YA book, so you're not getting Richard Powers level writing, but you are getting a page-turning and thought-provoking story.

We get to experience gender and race and other changes through Ethan, and it's cleverly done by a husband and wife author team, one of whom is transgender. We get male perspectives on everyday female issues, female on male, and so on. Pretty addictive. Meanwhile, Than experiences romance each school year despite the changes. Since Changers are supposed to keep their nature hidden, this makes for some tricky maneuvers. Ethan in his manifestations is very likeable and (if you accept the premise) believable. He was fine with being Ethan, and at times resists the changes. But, as his mother says, "Who hasn't fantasized about being someone else?" show less