The characters are so real and engaging and full of depth. There’s so much that I loved about this book. What I loved about The Art of Being Normal… Then Leo meets Alicia, and while he find he’s falling hard for her, a part of him is afraid of getting too close… But Leo wants more than anything forget about what happened last February… Along with this, his home life is less than perfect, having a strained relationship with his mother–who never seems to be around to take care of her kids–and desperate to hunt down his biological father. On his first day, Leo is known as that kid who got kicked out of his last school. All the while, David tries to get up the courage to finally tell his parents the truth. He has a scrapbook filled with mementos and memorabilia–from photos to articles–as inspiration for who he truly wants to be.
Every day, he records the progression of his physical attributes–height, weight, chest, Adam’s apple, penis size–as the threat of puberty looms closer. Though The Art of Being Normal has come under slight criticism by some for not being authored by a transgender writer, it is an important book that has great credibility, having been inspired by Williamson’s two years spent working as an administrator at the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at London’s Tavistock Centre, which supports under-18s struggling with their gender identity.The Art of Being Normal, Lisa Williamson’s debut novel, is a story of two boys, whose lives intertwine and who both have one thing in common…ĭavid has a secret, and apart from his two best friends, he’s never told anyone: ever since he can remember, David’s one wish has been to be a girl.
The boys are all bravery and wit in the face of enmity and bigotry, and their friendship is both remarkable and unexpected. Leo also has secrets largely the result of his difficult background, and his friendship with David begins when he stands up for him on his first day at Eden Park School. David harbours a secret: despite what everyone assumes, he isn’t gay, he’s attracted to the most popular boy in school because he’s a girl living inside a male body. Philip Pullman has called Lisa Williamson’s The Art of Being Normal ‘a life-changing and life-saving book,’ and this is just one of the reasons it became the bestselling young adult hardback debut of 2015, pulling in a nomination for the Carnegie Medal and being listed for five other awards that year.ĭavid and Leo, its two teenage protagonists, are both boys navigating their own rocky teenage terrain by attempting to be invisible.
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