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Have you read The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson (2015)?

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Voting ended onFeb 27

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by Lisa Williamson

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Lisa Williamson Blocker 2021 Flashe on primed aluminum 96.5 x 45.5 x 18 cm (38 x 18 x 7 in.)

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Even though I know that there's a ton of stuff ahead I'm so terrified about I can't breathe sometimes, tonight I can't help but feel like no matter how hard it gets, everything might just be OK in the end.

The Art of Being Normal - Lisa Williamson

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Lisa Williamson for Balenciaga, Fall 2021 Haute Couture

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Lisa Williamson

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2.96 The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

SPOILERS

Pages: 344

Read Time: 3 hours and 13 minutes

Overall Rating: 1★ Storyline: 1★ Dialogue: 1★ Characters: 1★

Genre: YA Fiction

TWs for the book: Transphobia, deadnaming, bullying, outing, homophobia, mentions of s*x, s*xual assault, mentions of genitalia, violence, alcohol, dysphoria, smoking, cussing, t slur

POV: First person; Leo and Kate (David)

Time Period/Location: Modern day Southern England 

First Line: One afternoon, when I was eight years old, my class was told to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. 

The Art of Being Normal tells the story of Kate (David), an in the closet trans girl going to Eden Park school, and Leo, a stealth trans boy from Cloverdale who gets transferred to Eden Park after experiencing an attempted sexual assault hate crime at his old school. Leo is set on not making friends or interacting socially until he stands up for Kate, who is being bullied. At this same time, he also falls for a girl named Alicia. Things get serious with her, and Leo starts tutoring Kate in math, and everything seems fine for awhile, but whenever Alicia and Leo go to have sex, he panics and finally tells her that he is trans. She immediately breaks up with him, and her best friend Becky does some digging and finds out that Leo is trans and tells the entire school. Leo is determined to run away and find his father down south in Tripton, but Kate insists upon going with him, offering to pay for everything. They go, and find his father, but he rejects him and calls him a freak, claiming to not know him at all. Leo is heartbroken, but him and Kate return to Eden Park and Cloverdale. Kate comes out to her parents and she is accepted, and Leo finally learns what really happened between his mom and dad. Kate and Leo both return to school, and the night of the Christmas Ball, their friends, Essie and Felix, reveal that they have set up an “alternative Christmas Ball” to happen at the abandoned pool in Cloverdale, and Kate and Leo go together, Kate finally getting to dress like a girl in front of her peers. At the end of the book, Alicia comes and finds Leo at his house and apologized for the way she acted and for not standing up for him to Becky, and they agree to start over as friends.

Kate (David) Piper: Kate was a really awkward narrator. It feels like she doesn’t even view herself as a girl, and she is never referred to as such until the end of the book. When Leo reveals to her that he is also transgender, her immediate response is, “You’re a girl??” and “Were you in disguise at your old school too?” which is very out of character and very odd. She is out to her two best friends, and even alone they never use her preferred name or pronouns, and she never expresses discomfort at this either. She also performs these neurotic “inspections” of herself, that are very uncomfortable and awkward to read about. It’s almost like the author forgot Kate was trans until it furthered the plot.

Leo Denton: Leo is kind of an asshole honestly. He can be very mean to Kate and up until the last chapter of the book he never genders her correctly or uses her proper name. He offers no support to Kate at all. Also the fact that he didn’t reveal to Alicia until the moment they were about to have sex that he was trans didn’t sit right with me either, and then was mad like it was her fault that she felt lied to. Granted Alicia didn’t handle it the best, but honestly, in that situation, I would be upset too. Sometimes it isn’t safe to be out at first, but it never should have gotten that far without him telling her. Alicia wasn’t some kind of transphobe for not wanting to have sex with him, proven by the fact she kept it a secret and defended him to her friends, and also tried to make amends with him in the end. Having a genital preference is valid. 

Essie and Felix: Supposedly Kate’s two best friends in the whole wide world, they were both very flat characters that had no development. They claim to be supportive of Kate but show no effort in supporting her transition until after she comes out to her parents. Her friends describe her as gay for having a crush on a cis guy, even though she has told them she is trans. Kate doesn’t correct them.

Livvy Piper: Ok I am making a specific reference to Livvy, Kate’s younger sister here, because the entire way she is written and her purpose in the story is really gross. Kate specifically mentions her bra size and when she gets her period and sees her as everything she can’t have. It’s very weird and very uncomfortable. 

Storyline: Honestly, you can tell this book was written by a cis woman. I feel as if no trans people were consulted on this at all. The story itself at its bare minimum was good, but it fell really flat as far as good representation. She makes passing seem like such an easy thing, the second that Leo and Kate are dressed in boy and girl clothes respectively they instantly pass with everyone they meet. She makes it seem like passing and being stealth are the goals when it comes to transitioning, which it is not for a lot of people. Also, Leo’s trans experience as a stealth, socially transitioned person is more validated than Kate’s ever is. There are a lot of mentions of deadnames, and whenever a character comes out they always say things like “I’m a girl trapped in a boy body” and “I was born a girl”. And please, for the love of god, if you are a cis author, do not write your characters saying slurs like tr*nny. In my opinion, cis authors shouldn’t be writing books about the trans experience when it is not something they have first hand experience about.

Representation: Leo is FtM transgender, Kate if MtF transgender. There is brief mention of a lesbian couple holding hands. As far as trans representation goes, it’s horrendous. Alicia and her parents are the only people of color in the entire book.

Summary: Overall, this was a really bad representation of trans youth, and the fact that this book is marketed towards kids in the 12-16 age range makes me really pissed off. It’s good to have trans rep and books about trans experience but it was not done or handled well and I was fairly uncomfortable reading it as a trans person.