The Art of Being Normal

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As a teenager she was bitten by the acting bug and at 19 moved to London to study drama at university. Williamson presents a fresh perspective in contemporary LGBTQ drama by presenting two heroes in different stages of transitioning and further bringing the teens to life through their foibles and family dramas.

The story was so painfully boring with the typical high school bullies who felt so unrealistic because they used pathetic insults like "freak-show". Near the end of the book, Kate's friends out her to almost the entire school without asking her anything, and instead host her a suprise party, dress her up, and not tell her anything until it's too late to do anything about it. I was so excited to read this, especially after seeing so many rave reviews, but unfortunately this was a story that did not make it on my memorable list.

Two outsiders – David, a transgender teenager on the cusp of puberty - and Leo, isolated from his classmates at the prestigious Eden Park secondary school by class and a reputation for violence, find their stories mesh in unexpected and transformative ways. And though it was sometimes hard to read the tough times these kids go through, I want felt HOPEFUL by the end. Though Kate is a trans girl - A GIRL - for most of the book she still goes by her birth name and he/him pronouns.

There are so many people out there today struggling with gender identity and the desperate need to be looked at as "normal" because they do not fit into the specific and constricting constructs of society and it is just heartbreaking. Apart from his two best friends, most of his fellow high school students ridicule him for being different.Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Despite having found each other, David and Leo’s lives are still hard, and they constantly fear being outed. Debut author Williamson does a good job of depicting British class realities and [the characters'] struggles with family, bullying, friendship, and bravery. Hopefully, with books such as this one, we will begin to grow out of the default straight, white, cisgender characters that dominate the shelves and expand the horizons of YA diversity, which has been happening more and more in recent times.

The story screams American cliche high school trash that we see in so many media outlets and the book isn't even set in America,it's set in England so why are they acting so American? Reasonable Authority Figure: Mr Toolan, head teacher at Eden Park school, has a zero tolerance policy on physical violence, though he doesn't appear to do much where verbal bullying is concerned.

It captured David and Leo’s struggles with fitting in, and showed the challenge of being a transgender person in a time when many people still hold so much prejudice. The Art of Being Normal went on to win the Waterstones Children's Book Prize for Best Older Fiction 2016 and was the bestselling hardback UKYA debut of 2015. I couldn't finish this,it deals with an incredibly important issue and relevant topic in today's society but the book just felt like a generic ya book. As for Leo, he had a hard upbringing with a mother ignoring him most the time and not having a real connection with any of his siblings, even his twin.

In my opinion, the process of going through a sex change and its physical and emotional effects are never fully explored because David and Leo stand at opposite sides of that process. When Kellie Maloney, former boxing manager of Lennox Lewis, made front-page news with the revelation that she was transgender, she said: "I wasn’t born into the right body, I have always known I was a woman. La novela se lee muy rápido, no tiene una lectura muy fácil porque es densa y la autora nos contextualiza mucho para entender bien qué es la transexualidad. Overly exaggerated tales of his exploits at his last high school follow him, but he lets people say what they want about him.

Well, it's a little saccharine but then I mused on how good it would have been for a teenage Kellie Maloney to read a YA book like The Art of Being Normal back five decades ago, when she was a teenager. First of all, for 98% of the novel, David, who is, in fact, a trans girl is addressed with male pronouns. I believe in giving authors the benefit of the doubt until I've seen the proof in their work; regardless of how you identify, it is possible to show compassion in the pages.