Reviews with content warning for Outing - The Art of Being Normal

Reviews tagging 'Outing'

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

23 reviews

cassius_orion's review

emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

Author is cisgender, and some of the way she writes her trans characters feels inauthentic. She also deadnames and misgenders the main character, Kate (she/her), throughout the entire book.

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cymbal_curtain's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No

3.5

For a trans book it handles transness kinda poorly. The plot however is amazing, except one plotpoint which revolved around transness in a way that seems weird. The book was really good at making me feel things, like the negative parts felt really bad/scary/negative, and the positive parts felt really good/funny. A lot of the language used annoyed me and the transfem character is made to be clueless about very basic stuff, which idk. While she is supposed to have known she was trans for ages, and knows various things about getting trans healthcare, she doesn't know how to talk about transness at all. And the transmasc character is more knowledgeable, making sense as he's been out even before the book, but he still misgenders the trans woman?? As does the outside of the book. This is a book about a trans girl (closeted) and a trans boy (out) and the outside is like "two boys". We the reader get to know the transfem is trans pretty much immediately too, it's not some surprise the author is protecting.

Also some non-trans stuff: Some stuff was typical (popular/mainstream) teen stuff, and I didn't really like that, but it is an accurate depiction of teens I guess.

Also a note that this book includes crushing and romance in parts. It is delved into, but doesn't take over the entire plot.

The book I would say is a critically minded one. Criticizing how certain people act (power imbalances). It's also a hopeful one (things get better). But it is a very heavy book. It shows some dark sides of being trans. This book does not talk about gender dysphoria basically at all, which is pretty surprising for a trans book, but I guess that's what you get with a cis author?

The book has two main characters and alternates between these, with the main indication being a font change. But their outlook is so intensely different that it's easy to tell the difference even if you don't notice that.

Would I recommend it? Idk. Depends what you're looking for. it's well written in general terms, not so well written in terms of transness (imo). And it is trans, transness is obvious all the time. if you just want any transness it does deliver that.

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theo_is_lost's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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plutos_atmosphere's review

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I think this book did trans rep as well as it could've for 2015.
Read it in ~~4 hours because I refused to put it down.
It was really sweet at points, and also very sad too, but I loved every second of it. As a trans person, I felt what both Kate and Leo felt about themselves and their identities. It's comforting to be able to relate to people in the book you're reading, and that's another reason why I loved this book. I do think that the trans topics could've been handled just a bit better, but this came out in 2015 so I can't blame it much. Personally, I really loved the

Tripton-On-Sea montage and the Christmas Ball montage too as they were just very fluffy (with the compulsory angst ofc, but I love them nonetheless).

At the end, I felt like something was missing. I really wanted to see more of

Leo's and Kate's relationship fleshed out (because I think they should've gotten together) but I am fairly content with the ending I got, where Alicia and Leo became friends again, and where, of course Leo and Kate are friends too.

It's not just a story about trans people, it's a story about friendship, love, acceptance and self-discovery, and it's important for everyone to know these things.
I think it's a must-read. TRANS RIGHTS FOLKS!!! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

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