#liz lighty

[mccoppinscrapyard]

Read in 2022 (7/?)

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

❝  I don't believe in fairy tales and love at first sight and all that, but for just a second, I think this girl and those eyes and the way her freckles dot the entire expanse of her face are cute enough to make a believer out of me. ❞ 

[lanelart]

Them? In a crown? I think I’d like that.

[fishfingersandscarves]

you should see me in a crown is SO GOOD i just finished it and cried 3 times adsjhgjfdks

[rujuraptor]

"When you already feel like everything about you makes you stand out, it just makes more sense to find as many ways to blend in as you can."

—Leah Johnson, You Should See Me In A Crown

[cassontheoffbeat]

May we NEVER SHUT UP about You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson because Liz & Mack are the cutest, but also Liz & her family are the sweetest and Liz & her friends are the softest :) Could you tell I loved this book?? Serving some first date Liz/Mack realness with this piece

[miscellaneous-nonsense-llc]

Silence and shame aren't the same thing - not by a long shot. But sometimes silence is simpler

Leah Johnson, You Should See Me in a Crown

[ireadyabooks]

You Are Already Royalty: Guest Post by Leah Johnson

Leah Johnson, author of You Should See Me in a Crown, writes about what it meant to her to write a book about a queer, Black girl owning her destiny and claiming her crown! 

Over the course of my life, I’ve read about a lot of carefree white girls with big bank accounts and even bigger love stories. These stories were everything to me. (Seriously, ask me anything about vacationing in the Hamptons and falling in love with a cute boy who works on the docks!)

Even in the years when my family struggled to make ends meet, when the Scholastic Book Fair came to school, my mom somehow always found a way for me to purchase at least one book. But, full disclosure: I have never been a carefree white girl with a big bank account or had a swoon-worthy Hamptons summer romance. 

I didn’t see many characters who looked like me or had problems like mine, especially not in romantic comedies. 

That’s where You Should See me in a Crown was born: a story about Liz Lighty, a Black girl form a small Midwestern town who, despite mastering the art of being a wallflower, must run for prom queen to win a scholarship to attend her dream college.

Here, Liz is given the space to be queer and confused, anxious and awkward, broke and brilliant, scared and smart. And most importantly, in this book, Liz is given the space for a happy ending. 

This book is a love letter to Black girls, to all the amazing women I see in Liz Lighty––my brilliant sisters, my tenacious nieces, my fierce grandmother, my compassionate mother––in all their glorious imperfections. And hopefully you see yourselves in her too.

The great Ntozake Shange once said, “I write for young girls of color, for girls who don't even exist yet, so that there is something there for them when they arrive.” So in keeping with that tradition: 

This book is about you, my sisters, both present and future. 

Although this is a book about what it takes to become queen, I didn’t have to write it in order for us to become royalty. But thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for allowing me to.

In love and solidarity, 

Leah Johnson

Start reading You Should See Me in a Crown!

[fishfingersandscarves]

go read you should see me in a crown by leah johnson