SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About TLT
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • A to Z Book Lists
    • Book Review Policy
  • Teen Issues
  • Middle Grade Mondays
  • Programs
    • TPiB
    • Tech Talk
  • Professional
    • Teen Services 101
    • Things We Didn’t Learn in Library School
  • MakerSpace
  • Projects
    • #SVYALit
    • #FSYALit
    • #MHYALit
    • #Poverty in YA Lit

August 7, 2019 by Karen Jensen, MLS

Book Review: The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson, reviewed by teen reviewer Elliot

August 7, 2019 by Karen Jensen, MLS   1 comments

In the first day at his new school, Leo Denton has one goal: to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in his class is definitely not part of that plan- especially because Leo is a trans guy and isn’t out at his new school. Then Leo stands up for a classmate in a fight and they become friends. With Leo’s help and support, the classmate, who is a trans girl, prepares to come out and transition- and to find a new name, Kate. Though Kate and Leo are surrounded by bigots, they have each other, and they have hope in the future.


Elliot’s Thoughts

As someone with a trans experience I was delighted to find a book that followed the journey of not one, but two trans individuals. However, as I delved into this book I quickly realized that the trans representation seemed to be very cliche’ and it was difficult for me to be transported to another world because, for me, this book just seemed like fiction rather than a world that I could escape to.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

To start, the characters in this book were not very fleshed out. Most of the characters did not have any backstory and thus lead to them being more like characters than actual people. Even Leo, the character who got the most of a background, still seemed to not be very connected to his past despite being driven by it. 

Characters were often introduced merely as plot devices rather than being used as actual people with connections to others in the story. One of the best examples of this is with Leo’s twin sister, Amber, and his younger sister, Tia. Both of his sisters are mentioned multiple times throughout the novel, but we never learn much about them, their personality, or their relationship to the other characters in the story.

My next biggest problem is how Kate’s identity was explored throughout the novel. The POV rotated between being from Leo’s POV and Kate’s POV and with each rotation, the title of the chapter was labeled as the character’s name to clarify who’s POV the audience was reading. However, instead of titling the chapters from Kate’s POV as “Kate,” author Lisa Williamson titled them as Kate’s birth name, “David.” Perhaps this was because Kate was not out about her gender identity and Williamson just wanted that to be clear to the audience, but to me it just seemed like sloppy trans representation especially because even after Kate came out, her chapters were still labeled as “David.”

One of my last major complaints is that the biggest turning point in the novel was completely spoiled for me…from the description that Williamson gave on the back of the book! Throughout the first half of the novel it is never mentioned that Leo is trans. He blends in and acts just like everybody else until he hooks up with a girl and has to reveal his identity before things get too intimate. If the back of the novel had not already told me that Leo was trans, I would have never suspected a thing and I would have been very pleasantly surprised at this point of the story, but, unfortunately, I did not get to enjoy the reveal and it made me feel disconnected with such an intimate part of Leo’s story arch.

Now that I’ve spent a lot of time harping on this novel, I’d like to take a second to express the things that I DID enjoy about Williamson’s novel. 

From the very beginning of the novel, Williamson made Leo a very mysterious character. His father left when he was a kid and he had a really dark history at his old school which, although he purposefully never talks about that experience, is the reason for his transfer to his new school. This mystery of what happened at Leo’s old school was one of the few things that made me want to keep reading. I wanted to know about Leo’s past- why his father left, where his father went, what happened at his old school, and why Leo is such a hard-shelled person. 

Williamson provided a similar scenario that needed to be answered about Kate’s life. From the very first chapter we learn about Kate’s trans identity and how she has been aware of her identity ever since she was a child. However, Kate never came out to anybody except for her two best friends, Felix and Essie. This leaves us wondering if she’s ever going to come out to her family and how that will change her experience at school and her relationship with her parents. These unanswered questions following Leo and Kate were what kept me reading until the very end, so I have to applaud Williamson for keeping the book interesting. 

In conclusion, I would give Williamson’s The Art of Being Normal a 2 out of 5 stars. It was interesting enough to keep me reading until the very end and I felt somewhat satisfied when I finished. However, there were so many things that I think could have been done better. I appreciate being able to read a story about trans individuals, but I think I set my expectations a little too high. Overall, this novel was good for exposure, and a good place for people to be introduced into the experiences of those with a trans identity; however, I hope that after someone reads this, that they don’t expect Leo and Kate’s stories to represent the whole trans community.

Filed under: Book Reviews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
LGBTQIA+Lisa WilliamsonThe Art of Being Normal

About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

January 2023

Book Review: Play the Game by Charlene Allen

by Karen Jensen, MLS

January 2023

Book Review: The Davenports by Krystal Marquis

by Karen Jensen, MLS

January 2023

Post-It Note Reviews: A mayor dog, a bunch of Big Bads, a mobster, and more!

by Karen Jensen, MLS

January 2023

Book Review: The Roof Over Our Heads by Nicole Kronzer

by Karen Jensen, MLS

January 2023

Book Review: Lark & Kasim Start a Revolution by Kacen Callender

by Karen Jensen, MLS

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Notes on January 2023

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Jump Into this Guest Post by Shadra Strickland About Her Latest Book: Jump In!

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

The Archie Encyclopedia | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

Heavy Medal

FREEWATER wins the Newbery Medal, live reactions from Heavy Medal bloggers

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Cindy Crushes Programming: My Top Ten Craft Supplies

by Cindy Shutts

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

A Book 25 Years in the Making: Marla Frazee Visits The Yarn

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Spotting Misinformation and #FakeNews: 10 Resources To Teach Students Media Literacy

Educators Weigh In on Summer Reading Lists in SLJ/NCTE Survey

9 Adult Books with Teen Appeal | Great Books

17 Magical and Mind-Bending Sci-Fi & Fantasy Titles for Teens | Summer Reading 2020

ReadABILITY| Great Books Centering Disability Narratives

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hal says

    August 7, 2019 at 4:26 pm

    Elliott, thank you so much for reviewing this book! I have seen it a lot and read reviews by others that made me uncomfortable with it as a trans adult, but I wondered what a trans teenager’s response would be. I remember reading “Beautiful Music for Ugly Children” as a teenager and feeling fairly alienated despite being the demographic the book was about, and it sucks that trans YA is still doing that.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023