The Art of Being Normal

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Top Ten Books of 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature run by BrokeAndBookish each week. As 2016 is coming to a close, this week’s theme is all about our favourite books of the year. I didn’t really get much reading done in the last few months of the year, I started a new job and couldn’t really get into any of the books I was picking up but I did read some good books in 2016. So below, in no particular order, are my ten favourite books I read this year – the links in the book titles go to their reviews where you can find out more about why I liked them so much.

The Murdstone Trilogy by Mal Peet
This book was unlike anything I’d read before. It’s the perfect commentary on the fantasy genre and it’s a very funny read as well.

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson
This was one of the first books I read this year and it stuck with me a long time after I finished it.

Asking for It by Louise O’Neill
This was such a tough read but it was still a really good and important book. It is often a frustrating book with a frustrating and unlikable protagonist but that makes it all the more interesting and memorable. (more…)

REVIEW: The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

the art of being normalFourteen-year-old David Piper has always been an outsider. The school bully thinks he’s a freak and his parents think he’s gay. Only David’s two best friends know the truth – David wants to be a girl. When Leo Denton starts his new school, he wants to be invisible but attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven doesn’t really help matters. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, things start to get out of hand as an unlikely friendship forms, because nothing stays secret for long at Eden Park School.

While celebrities who are coming out as transgender have become more common over the past few years and transgender issues are getting covered by the media, it is still something very rarely talked about in young adult literature. The Art of Being Normal shines a light on what it’s like being a young person struggling with their identity and being transgender.

When he was eight and was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, David said he wanted to be a girl. Since then he struggled with who he is, is envious of his younger sister and doesn’t know how to talk to his parents. It’s tough being a teenager anyway but when you’re a teenager in the wrong body life is even more difficult for David.

(more…)