Isaac Fitzsimons's heartfelt debut, The Passing Playbook, focuses on Spencer, a Black transmasculine teen hoping to live stealth at his new school.
Sophomore Spencer lands a spot on the all-boys' soccer team but, instead of celebrating, he is distracted by hypervigilance around passing as cisgender male: he waits to use the boys' bathroom until it's empty, he's self-conscious about being physically smaller than other boys his age and he keeps his official documents private. When he swiftly develops a crush on a white cis teammate who is staunchly religious, Spencer's fear of being outed and his teammate's beliefs make it pretty difficult to further their relationship. These differences, though, also provide common ground. Both boys, it turns out, are hiding vital pieces of their identity from their respective families: Spencer tries to keep the team a secret from his parents, who fear that being on an all-boys' team would result in bullying like at his last school; he feels that "his parents might support his transition, but they would never truly see him as a boy." Meanwhile, his crush hides his own sexuality for fear it will harm his family's reputation in their religious community.
Fitzsimons provides a sports-centered theme that also includes the intersectionality of Spencer's identities: queer male, sibling to a neurodiverse younger brother and one of two Black teammates. The conversational third-person narration gives readers an unobstructed view into Spencer's world, both in what he shows to the world and what he chooses to keep private. Fitzsimons's protagonist is easy to love, and he writes with ease and finesse when navigating Spencer's connected identities. --Kieran Slattery, freelance reviewer, teacher, co-creator of Gender Inclusive Classrooms