Friday Memes: Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice.

Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart. 331 p. Delacorte Press/ Random House Children's Books, May, 2016. 9780553536751. 

Publisher synopsis: Lily Jo McGrother, born Timothy McGrother, is a girl. But being a girl is not so easy when you look like a boy. Especially when you’re in the eighth grade. 

Dunkin Dorfman, birth name Norbert Dorfman, is dealing with bipolar disorder and has just moved from the New Jersey town he’s called home for the past thirteen years. This would be hard enough, but the fact that he is also hiding from a painful secret makes it even worse.  

One summer morning, Lily Jo McGrother meets Dunkin Dorfman, and their lives forever change.  
First line(s): Lily Jo is not my name. Yet.

But I'm working on that.

That's why I'm in the closet. Literally in my mom's walk-in closet with Meatball at my heels.

Page 56: I'm so tired I trip down the first couple stairs. But when I see who's in the foyer, I immediately wake fully and run the rest of the way down. I  tackle my best friend in a bone-crunching hug. She smells like sunscreen and chlorine. A whole summer of horse camp hasn't change that smell. I pull back and look at her face. Thinner. She looks old, more mature. Do I? "Dare!" I squeeze her again, not believing I made it through the whole summer without her.

I'm actually reading this one with my ears because I've had the arc on the tbr pile since midwinter and now the finished copy but too much reading with my eyes deadlines to fill before getting to it with my eyes. I spied the audio in the Books on Tape booth at Annual and snapped it up immediately. I love it already.