Poet Max Fischer's devastating and divine YA debut novel-in-verse, The Unpoetic Life of August Grey, follows a transgender teen grieving the death of his friend and trying to find the determination to declare his identity.
Every summer since his parents' divorce, August leaves his mom in Nebraska and visits his dad and stepbrother in New York City. When August was 10, he met Waylon Halloway at the beach off Brooklyn's Pier 3. The two shared a love of writing, and Waylon became August's best friend and crush. At 15, August realized he's trans; a year later, Waylon drowned in the East River. "Three minutes," August thinks. "That's how long you can survive/ underwater before going/ unconscious." Now 17, August has been accepted into his and Waylon's dream writing workshop. He's trepidatious about returning to New York but envisions this summer as a self-imposed, figurative "third minute": it's his "last chance--/ to relearn how to/ breathe" and speak out before his past drowns him, too.
The Unpoetic Life of August Grey is told through August's direct, passionate perspective. August feels isolated in his ongoing struggle to live authentically; his father insists on calling him by his "birth name," which is consistently redacted in the text, and he is haunted by how negatively Waylon responded to his hints about his trans identity. When August opens up in the same way to his only remaining friend, Levi, he hangs up before Levi can respond. Then Levi unexpectedly arrives in the city, and the boys embrace a tender budding romance while Levi helps August find the courage to "break the water's surface."
Fischer creatively plays with form and format. For example, one poem is titled "Waylon Refused to Write in Any Form Except for Couplets," and any time August thinks of Waylon, his narration takes that form. Later, August realizes he doesn't know "how to exist in/ words when" all he's ever done is "erase" himself from them. Afterward, his text swells across the page until the last poem fills its width. Fischer uses water as an inventive and multifaceted metaphor: puddles reflect August's duality, and being underwater blocks out pain but prevents forward momentum.
This essential read carefully unfurls fierce truths for many queer and trans teens, including heartbreak, body politics, and the desire to be truly seen by loved ones. --Kieran Slattery, freelance reviewer, teacher
Shelf Talker: This bittersweet, queer YA novel-in-verse follows a transgender teen poet grieving the death of his best friend and trying to write his true self into existence.