THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE HORRORSHOW, even before Finch's stepfather physically assaults her (but only once, and he's sorry, so it doesn't come up again). Finch is terrified that puberty will out her to her classmates, who already can tell she's different somehow and bully her, and that she won't be able to get blockers because, again, her guardians don't believe in being trans (and have started 'suggesting' religious conversion therapy). they're a better option than her deadbeat bio-dad, who took off after her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Her stepfather and her stepfather's new wife misgender her constantly, but Maddy tells her that she should appreciate that they love her and are doing their best because.

Her mother is dead, leaving her with only one supportive adult in her life: Maddy, the grandmotherly next-door neighbor. This book is about a trans protagonist but it doesn't feel like the author has really internalized how bad transphobia feels to the person on the receiving end of it. Her most recent novel, Like Dust, I Rise, is a Coming of Age novel set in Texas during the Dust Bowl.ĪRC via Netgalley. Ginny is a past director of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference. Ginny is the author 6 novels for Middle Grade and Young Adults readers: Freeing Finch, How to Speak Dolphin, Lost in the River of Grass, winner of the 2012 / 2013 Sunshine State Young Readers Award Hurt Go Happy, winner of the 2008 American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award. She now lives on the chilly coast of northern California. Her goal, after wrapping up her flying career and her graduate studies, was to move someplace where she would never be hot again. She went on to receive an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. Midway through that career, she enrolled in the University of Miami to pursue an undergraduate degree in biology, graduated and changed direction again.

Ginny Rorby was raised in Winter Park, Florida, and lived in Miami during her career as a Pan American flight attendant.

Freeing Finch by Ginny Rorby