Kim (Changers Series #3)

by T Cooper, Allison Glock-Cooper

Overview

In Book Three of this acclaimed YA series, Oryon Small transforms into Kim, an Asian American girl who must learn to separate body image from self-worth.

“Changers should appeal to a broad demographic. Teenagers, after all, are the world’s leading experts on trying on, and then promptly discarding, new identities.” —New York Times Book Review

When we last saw Oryon Small he was kidnapped and locked in a basement, his best friend Chase dying in his arms. In Book Three of the groundbreaking Changers series, Oryon awakens as Kim Cruz, an Asian American girl whose body looks nothing like she expected or desired.

Where Changers Book One: Drew dealt primarily with issues of gender and bias, and Changers Book Two: Oryon explored issues concerning race and bigotry, Changers Book Three: Kim tackles the thorny, less straightforward subjects of body shaming, self-esteem, grief, mental illness, and how the expectations of the outside world can’t help but color the way we see ourselves.

Kim—smart, funny, and finally fed up with the cards she’s been dealt—is finding out that friends change, love doesn’t always mean forever, and growing up means living your truth, even if it isn’t pretty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617754890
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Series:	Changers Series , #3
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	860L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

T Cooper is an author, television writer, journalist, and filmmaker whose groundbreaking work has been pushing boundaries both in print and on screen for twenty years. He currently serves as executive producer and writer on The Blacklist, and is the author of nine books, including two best-selling novels. Cooper’s feature documentary Man Made has screened at more than eighty film festivals worldwide, winning fourteen Best Documentary jury and audience awards—in addition to a Sundance Institute Grant (the film is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime). Cooper is a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University, and one half of Holler Beach Productions.

ALLISON GLOCK-COOPER is the author of the New York Times notable book Beauty Before Comfort, which Kirkus called, "A memoir as elemental as its subject: pulsing, fetching, leaving a strong afterglow," and for which she received a Whiting Award. Glock has been a journalist for twenty-two years, and her work has been published in the New York Times, GQ, Rolling Stone, Esquire, the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, O, The Oprah Magazine, Elle, Marie Claire, Garden & Gun, and many others. The Changers YA Series is her first collaboration in print with T Cooper.

Editorial Reviews

11/01/2016
Gr 7 Up—This series takes the ultimate teen experience—not feeling comfortable in one's own skin—and folds it into a fantastical premise: with each year of high school, a young Changer wakes up as an entirely different person. Readers of the past installments have followed Oryon through experiences he never expected: menstruating, being sexually assaulted, and facing racial prejudice. In this title, Oryon is now Kim and has to deal with fat-shaming and homophobia. While living with new identities might encourage empathy for other people, the more immediate concern for many Changers is how to survive a year of high school. Readers will connect with Kim as she tentatively makes new friends; watches Audrey, the girl she still cares about, from afar; and struggles with who she is and who she wants to be, while finding comfort in the theater crowd. This strong entry in the series is a good choice for readers looking for books about friendship, identity, and LGBTQ issues. VERDICT Purchase where the previous volumes are popular.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library

School Library Journal

2016-08-17
Ethan woke up his freshman year as a white girl, sophomore year as a black boy, and now junior year as a fat Asian girl named Kim. Kim's initial self-loathing for her larger self is difficult to take but highlights what can come with being fat: the limp "pretty face" compliments, the unwanted self-presentation advice, acting small to make up for taking up physical space. Kim makes friends with a theater-obsessed white boy—who refers to himself as a “total gay cliché”—who helps her stow her shame and dance freely, which leads to liberation in the rest of her life. When Kim's invited to join an Asian student club, she feels like an imposter because she wasn't raised with traditions that inform the Asian-American kids' lives—a feeling also experienced by children of immigrants whose parents have valued assimilation over identity. The love interest through two books, Audrey, is back, but Kim's relationship with her can't be anything like it had been—or can it? In this third book, it becomes clear that Cooper and Glock-Cooper are writing for the long game, and they've made some revelations that may help answer questions raised by the first two books. The plot is complicated (there’s even a glossary in the back), but Kim's voice and the banter between characters are funny, and they feel real. The identity and marginalization issues loom large, but instead of being shoehorned into side characters, they're scooped up and taken into a deeper, entertaining, fantastic narrative. (Science fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews