Becoming Jennifer

Not Yet Jennifer is the story of a summer spent in limbo, a season when the world moves forward, but one girl’s truth remains hidden just beneath the surface.

Jamie Grant is 13, too old for childhood but not yet free to be herself. She moves through the humid days of a Kansas summer with a secret name folded deep inside her, a name she only dares to write in a new diary, the name that feels more real than the one her family uses, Jennifer. But the world isn’t ready to see her. Her voice is still sweet and high, her features softer than most boys her age, and sometimes strangers mistake her for a girl, moments that thrill and terrify her all at once. At home, her father’s rules are sharp and her mother’s silences sharper still; there’s no space for questions, only the performance of “son.”

This summer is different, not just because high school is looming, but because Jamie’s only true friend, her first love, Jeremy, is gone, ripped away with no goodbye. The memory of their first kiss lingers, a secret as precious as the photograph she hides in her notebook. Alone for the first time, Jamie begins to record her real self in words, taking tiny, trembling steps toward becoming Jennifer, if only in private.

Week by week, she finds small, dangerous freedoms: a borrowed scarf, a glimpse in the mirror, a secret wish whispered to the stars. She aches to be seen, to be known, to hold on to her soft voice and her hope before the world changes her. New faces appear at high school orientation, girls who might one day become friends, a counselor whose kindness glimmers like a lifeline, but still, Jennifer waits. “Not yet,” she writes. “But soon.”

This is a story for anyone who’s ever had to wait for themselves, for every girl who loved in secret, every kid who grew up invisible, every soul who held onto hope in the dark. It is about the ache of first loss, the courage of quiet beginnings, and the belief that one day, your truth will have its moment in the sun.