Between Perfect and Real, Ray Stoeve
Between Perfect and Real, Ray Stoeve
7 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Between Perfect and Real

Author: Ray Stoeve

Narrator: M.W. Cartozian Wilson

Unabridged: 7 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 04/27/2021


Synopsis

A moving YA debut about a trans boy finding his voice—and himself.

Dean Foster knows he’s a trans guy. He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self?

About Ray Stoeve

Ray Stoeve is the author of the young adult novel Between Perfect and Real, which was a 2021 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. They also contributed to the young adult anthology Take The Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance. They received a 2016-2017 Made at Hugo House Fellowship and created the YA/MG Trans and Nonbinary Voices Masterlist, a database that tracks all books in those age categories written by trans authors about trans characters. When they're not writing, they can be found gardening, making art in other mediums, or hiking their beloved Pacific Northwest.


Reviews

Goodreads review by daph pink ♡ on May 27, 2022

Between perfect and real is a fabulous, powerful, heartfelt, emotional, heart wrenching story about finding your voice, your identity, exploring friendship and love. It's about that gap between perfect and real, about that bridge between perfect and real we all know exists but we are scared to cros......more

Goodreads review by theresa on April 28, 2021

Between Perfect and Real is a moving story of gender euphoria, coming into yourself and finding your place in the world. Following a trans boy cast as a “non traditional” Romeo in his school’s theatre performance, Stoeve’s debut takes readers through the highs and lows of coming out as trans while e......more

Goodreads review by Anniek on January 10, 2021

"The possibilities are endless." What a perfect way to end such a perfectly real book. One of the themes of this book is that there's no one way to be trans; being trans comes with infinite possibilites. Dean's story highlights one of those possibilities, but also makes room for all of the others, in......more

Goodreads review by Carmen on October 29, 2021

The barista sets our cups on the counter. "Here you go, boys." His smile is wide and gap-toothed, and my heart flutters as the words spill out of his mouth. BOYS. ... I look out the window, smiling. I let the pronouns sink in, filling my whole body, and my smile expands until I'm laughing. Ronnie sta......more

Goodreads review by Adri on May 02, 2021

4.5 Stars CWs: Bullying, transphobia and transphobic violence, harassment, minor outings of a trans person, deadnaming (dead name not mentioned on the page), homophobia and homophobic slurs, mention of suicide, and explorations of dysphoria Between Perfect and Real is a love letter to young trans......more