Although Shane Woods was born with a girls body, he realized by the time he was three that he was really a boy. He has a very supportive mom and an excellent doctor who are both helping him to adjust to living in a world that is nowhere near as accepting as he'd like it to be.
In the author's note at the end of the story, Hennessey says "This is first and foremost a story of hope overcoming hate. Love overcoming fear. Trust, empathy, and understanding overcoming all the forces that are sometimes rallied against them. I firmly believe that if we embrace these beliefs, the world becomes a better place for all of us."
I think that's why I liked The Other Boy so much. It really was a hopeful story. 
In the acknowledgements Hennessey says, "There a saying that you can't hate someone whose story you know" and I've always always believed that to be true. Once you know a person... really know them... you realize that you have much more in common then you initially believed and it's easy to emphasize and impossible to dislike them. 
A book like The Other Boy is an overdue and welcome addition to classroom shelves. Hopefully, in reading about Shane's painful experiences as a transgender teen being bullied, it might help develop love, understanding and compassion among readers who hadn't thought much about the transgender community. 

Now to be fair, the first thing you need to know is that I LOVE books where the main character is in a witness protection program. I’ve read lots of them and I’ve at least liked them all.
I devoured this book in one day and I know that it will fly off the shelf in my classroom, if it even makes it to the shelf after I book-talk it.
First of all, Sasha aka Sloane is feisty and fun and tough and very likeable. The only problem is that I don’t have a consistent picture in my head of how she looks.
Then there’s the two significant men in her life, Jason and Marc. Can’t even BEGIN to say enough about those two. I imagine both of them as being gorgeous but in separate ways.
I also loved that when I thought the book was winding down it really wasn’t; lots of twists and turns kept me guessing til the end. And lastly, in spite of what she says at the end about disappearing, I prefer to believe she’ll make that phone call.

This is the perfect book for girls who crave angst mixed with romance. Mallory's past as an abused foster child has left her an emotional mess, and as a result she has extreme difficulty talking to strangers or groups bigger than one other person. She's been homeschooled up til now but when The Problem With Forever begins, she's starting her senior year at a public high school. Although it was Mallory's decision, she's having second thoughts. Then, on her first day, she meets the boy she grew up with in the foster home, the boy who basically saved her life over and over again; Rider Stark.
The majority of the book deals with Mallory trying to sort out her feelings since Rider has a girlfriend and is off limits, but obviously still cares for Mallory. Mallory eventually realizes that she wants to be more than friends. While this is all happening, there are several subplots including bad choices about running drugs which affect someone like a brother to Ridrr, and a best friend, Ainsley, who's losing her eyesight. Not long after they officially become boyfriend and girlfriend, Rider breaks up with her because he feels that he's not good enough. Mallory ends up saving him by pointing out some hard truths. There's a very touching speech scene near the end of the book and it did make a few tears well up.
The grade eight girls will love this story.