The Flip Side

This novel tackles a challenging subject and has some intriguing ideas. Cross-dressing as Rosalind in a class restaging of a scene from Twelfth Night, Robert discovers a feminine persona that threatens to elbow aside the awkward teenage male guise he usually shows to the world. Soon he's kissing Milena, the girl he has always fancied, except he is dressed as Rosalind and she is dressed as a man. If that's not enough, his best friend Kevin declares that he is gay. Dealing with some of the same questions of sexual identity as Aidan Chambers' Postcards from No Man's Land, this is a much lighter, comic approach, with a spare, jokey first person narrative that reads like a clued up Adrian Mole. It is an enjoyable read that sets out to be both provocative and reassuring about gender roles and sexual behaviour; and the narrative keeps real pain and confusion at arm's length, even at the point when Kevin makes a suicide attempt.