Books I've Read: Birthday

Eric and Morgan were born on the same day, their parents bonding over their births after being trapped in the hospital for three days by a freak snowstorm. The have been best friends since birth and have always celebrated their birthdays together (apart from the year they both had chicken pox).

The book opens on the boys’ thirteenth birthday which they are celebrating at a water park. It’s the first birthday Morgan has celebrated since his mother’s death and her cake baking skills are not the only thing he misses. For a long time Morgan has felt different, and he’s finally figured out why: he’s actually a girl. While shrieking their way down a waterslide, Morgan tries to tell Eric this, but Eric doesn’t hear him.

The book follows this pair through their next five birthdays as they grow increasingly further apart.  Morgan struggles with his identity, even returning to the football team for a period, bulking up and trying to embrace the masculinity.  It keeps his father happy and gives him more time with Eric who stuck with football even after Morgan quit.

Eric has his own struggles.  His father is an overbearing bully whose narrow world-view forces both his older brothers to leave home and not return, leaving Eric and his mother to bear the brunt of his expectations.  And Eric is confused about his own feelings, especially after a night where he and Morgan kiss and it feels just like kissing a girl.

As Eric and Morgan grow up over the course of the book, Eric learns about who he really is, and Morgan makes the decision to stop living a lie and to live her life as the woman she knows she really is.

I really loved the way this book was structured, each chapter taking place on the birthday the two MCs share and following each of them through their days. It was an excellent way to show how they grow and change over the course of a year without actually having to see everything that happens to them over each twelve-month period.  The way their relationship twisted and changed over the years was very real, as was the strong thread that constantly held them together despite the challenges.

I would definitely recommend this one.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Boyhood meets The Sun Is Also a Star in this unconventional love story by award-winning author Meredith Russo!

Two kids, Morgan and Eric, are bonded for life after being born on the same day at the same time. We meet them once a year on their shared birthday as they grow and change: as Eric figures out who he is and how he fits into the world, and as Morgan makes the difficult choice to live as her true self. Over the years, they will drift apart, come together, fight, make up, and break up—and ultimately, realize how inextricably they are a part of each other.