I first read about If I Was Your Girl on BookRiot, I think -- but I picked it up entirely independently of the article I read, based on the beautiful cover alone, not realizing it was the same book I'd added to my endless list of books to hurry up and just read already. 
 And, for what it is, I think If I Was Your Girl is a pretty important book. I mean, how many mainstream Young Adult novels are tackling the perspective of a transgendered teenager? For a while, I was a little frustrated with the story -- mostly, I think, because everything was just TOO perfect. Amanda was not only passable as a female, she was a noticeably beautiful female that immediately attracted the most popular kids at her new school. Her family had no issues with paying for a seemingly expensive surgery, from which she had nothing but flawless results and amazingly smooth transitions. How relateable can the story really be if it could only happen in a setting of absolute perfection? 
 But, once I finished the novel and read the author's note at the very end, I think I understood that the pristine nature of Amanda and her situation were entirely intentional -- to remove any boundaries between the average YA reader and the notion of understanding the pure humanness of the character. 
 I think Russo accomplished everything she set out to express in If I Was Your Girl and I definitely look forward to seeing what she writes next.