Changers

Changers Book One: Drew opens on the eve of Ethan Miller's freshman year of high school in a brand-new town. He's finally sporting a haircut he doesn't hate, has grown two inches since middle school, and can't wait to try out for the soccer team. At last, everything is looking up in life. Until the next morning. When Ethan awakens as a girl. Ethan is a Changer, a little-known, ancient race of humans who live out each of their four years of high school as a different person. After graduation, Changers choose which version of themselves they will be forever-and no, they cannot go back to who they were before the changes began. Ethan must now live as Drew Bohner-a petite blonde with an unfortunate last name-and navigate the treacherous waters of freshman year while also following the rules: Never tell anyone what you are. Never disobey the Changers Council. And never, ever fall in love with another Changer. Oh, and Drew also has to battle a creepy underground syndicate called "Abiders" (as well as the sadistic school queen bee). And she can't even confide in her best friend, who can never know the real her, without risking both of their lives.

Changers Book Two: Oryon in the four-part Changers Series for young adults finds our hero Ethan/Drew on the eve of her second metamorphosis-into Oryon, a skinny African American skater boy with more swagger than he knows what to do with. Enter a mess of trouble from the Changers Council, the closed-minded Abiders, the Radical Changers (RaChas), and his best friend Audrey-at least she was his best friend when Oryon was Drew-and now, it's complicated. But that's life (and life, and life, and life) for Changers, an ancient race of humans who must live out each year of high school as a completely different person. Before next summer, Oryon will learn what it means to be truly loved, scared spitless, and at the center of a burgeoning national culture war. Most of all, he will learn again how much the eyes of the world try to shape you into what they see-and how only when you resist do you clearly begin to see yourself.

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.

When we left Kim Cruz in Changers Book Three, she'd just come out to her best friend. In Changers Book Four: Forever, Kim discovers that this is only one small part of understanding who she is and where she belongs. Soon enough, she changes again, into the body and social status of her dreams. What she does with her newfound power will come to haunt her. In this "bang-up ending to the series," our hero learns what it means to be the person everybody loves without actually being known at all; what it's like to be given the benefit of the doubt when you don't deserve it; and how easily opportunity comes when you look the part (Books YA Love). Changers Book Four explores what it means to find yourself-even as your self keeps changing-and how in the end we become the person whose story we want to finish.