First, let’s discuss the cover. The girl has huuuuge eyes (I suspect photoshop) and the reason I mention it is because the huge eyes is common in shoujo (girl’s) manga. So, the huge eyes automatically led me to expect something a bit wacky because well, suspension of belief is quite necessary to read some manga -_- (the shoujo ones anyway) and the mustache makeup is kinda genius. You have to admit that. It elicited a chuckle out of me anyway.First, let me just say that I love gender benders. I love the improbability of it and how it can create some pretty interesting situations. I have read a lot of gender benders, seen many dramas about them (they are a common trope in Asian pop lit) and so I have come to expect certain situations that seem to go hand in hand with gender benders. One of those situations is that the girl (if she’s in a boarding school, which she almost always is) has a room mate and the roommate is the boy she is majorly crushing on. This occurs in: The Education of Bet by Lauren Baratz, Hana Kimi by Nakajo Hisaya, She’s the Man movie and now Babe in Boyland.It might be a cliche, it might be expected but I actually like it. I like that the boy roommate is the love interest because come on now, how else is a girl in a boy’s boarding school supposed to get all mushy and romantic with any boy other than one who is asleep at the time she is being mushy and romantic? Well. That sounds wrong. But you get my point.Anyway, let’s talk about Babe in Boyland. While Ms. Gehrman does her best to plausibly set up circumstances that make Natalie’s undercover week at a boy’s boarding school seem realistic and possible, at a certain point, you just have to accept that this is a book and things are possible in it that will not be possible in real life. Suspension of belief is very necessary. Once you do suspend your expectations of reality, you are free to enjoy the book for what it is. I certainly did.The strengths in the book lie in the narrator. Natalie is a very likeable person. She is flawed to be sure but she contains a certain vulnerability to her, an honesty in her observations that you can’t help but empathize with. The friendship between girls is also refreshing as both the best friends are not just a means to an end – you know, the accessory friend, the one who is chubby, or stupid, the one who serves to make the heroine look better? Yeah, none of that in this book. I like how all the side characters are solidly developed and feel like real people instead of caricatures of them. The writing is flawless and the dialogues witty. The pacing is perfect and the relationships compelling.I liked how this book delves into the differences between the genders and instead of looking at it from just the perspective of the female. I think, too often, we forget to give boys the same respect that women demand. I know that most of the times they do not deserve it but I think that as we women fight not to be stereotyped and categorized, we should give the same consideration to the other gender. What does it mean to be an adolescent guy? I’m not sure I want to know. (Haha.) But I think that Ms. Gehrman correctly portrays that boys are just people. Yes, shocking, I know. The book takes a look at social status and divisions in high school and how a girl who starts out trying to understand boys ends up understanding herself and her gender.Oh and the love interest in this book? Smoking hot. I was in love with him at first description. I’m sort of shallow like that. Haha. Anyway, final verdict? I enjoyed the book. A lot. I think it is entertaining and has a bit of substance that saves it from being entirely fluff. So I think you should check it out.
