The Art of Being Normal

by Lisa Williamson

Two outsiders. Two secrets.

David longs to be a girl. Leo wants to be invisible.

When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School, secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long . . .

• ISBN10: 1910200522
• ISBN13: 9781910200520
• Publish Date: 7 January 2016 (first published 1 January 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 8 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: David Fickling Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

The Art of Being Normal is such a heartfelt and sweet read about friendship and acceptance, and we all know how I love me some friendship stories. David and Leo are not instafriends by any means. Leo is new at school and just wants to be left alone for fear that his secret (and the truth about why he transferred) will come out. But when he witnesses David being bullied, he can't just sit back like everyone else. From that day on, things are different, and David trusts Leo with a secret: David is really Kate, but afraid to come out to her parents.

I was immediately drawn into The Art of Being Normal. I felt so sad for Kate for not feeling like she can be herself. The only people who know are her two best friends and eventually Leo. But I was also happy for her for knowing without a doubt who she is and wants to be. She just needed the courage to come out and Leo gives her that. I was also intrigued by Leo's mystery, much like the girls at school who viewed him as this sexy bad boy. His secret is quite obvious, but I was still very much interested in his story of how he got to this point.

My favorite part of The Art of Being Normal was, of course, the friendships. Kate has Essie and Felix at first, and they support her. Leo is all on his own, finding it easier to avoid making connections before he can go off to college and start over. But once Kate enters his life, he finds connection. I absolutely adored the trip they take together and how he lets Kate be Kate. It's just so sweet! There is a very cheesy, after school special type of ending. It's sooooo cute though!

The Art of Being Normal was a really great read. It touches on some hard topics, but it never feels heavy. David's transition into Kate was so nice to see. I also loved watching Leo go from closed off to opening up. The ending is very hopeful and left me smiling.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Leah]

The Art of Being Normal was AMAZING, folks. SO SO GOOD. This book has had so much buzz - so much buzz that when I was in the airport in February I picked it up and paid full price for it. Granted, it's taken me until May to read it, but it was so worth the wait, because it was simply stunning. I can see why this novel is being applauded and it actually makes me so sad that this is a rare book, that there aren't other authors willing to write a book about a trans-gender character, because I LOVED David.

David was such an amazing character - Leo, too! To have two strong leading characters was so awesome, and despite their secrets (because they both have secrets) I was so desperate for them both to be accepted at their school and it made me sad that David was called "Freakshow" from the mean bullies, bullies who shouldn't have even been allowed at the school. It's perfectly FINE for someone to call David Freakshow, but Leo gets in trouble for punching the kid in the face? GOOD JOB SCHOOL. Honestly.

The book made me both sad and happy at the same time. Happy that the story was being told, happy that a publisher published this book and that it's getting very well deserved praise, but sad because how many kids out there are going through what David goes through, and are too scared to say something, because they fear they're not normal? Or how many kids are trying to be normal instead of being themselves? It was just sad, because while David's conclusion was pretty freaking awesome - and Leo's, too - that just isn't the case in real life for most of the kids going through what David goes through.

The Art of Being Normal is such an important book, this is a book that every kid should read. Schools should be championing this book and rightly so. It's important. It's nice to see that a book like this can be published, and can receive such freaking awesome praise, and such good praise! I'm so, so glad I picked this book up, it was by no means an easy read, but it was very much an important one and it was just so good. I loved getting to know Leo and David, and I loved the story telling, and I loved even more than David had two awesome friends, who didn't care that he wanted to be a girl, and who actively encouraged him to do so.

I will remember this book for a long time to come and if you haven't picked it up, then you must. And then pass it on to all of your friends.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

I first heard about The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson when Jim of YA Yeah Yeah, raved to me about it, but for some reason, it didn't really appeal to me. It's only when I arrived to work one day and was told a reading copy had been left for me that I really took an interest. Being a 2015 YA debut, I saved it to read until this year, and wow. This book is really worth all the buzz you're hearing!

David (who is later Kate, but David for most of the novel) is a girl, but she's yet to find the courage to tell anybody other that Essie and Felix, her two best friends. With a body that doesn't match her gender identity, she hates the way she looks, and only sometimes lets the real her shine through. Leo starts Eden Park with a history full of secrets and pain. All he wants to do is fly under the radar, get through this final year, then move the hell away for college. But he's come to school with a reputation, and everyone is talking about him. When David is being picked on by the school bully, Leo can't help but defend her, and people start talking even more. So much for going unnoticed. David is so grateful that Leo helped her out, and soon a friendship forms - one that is going to change both their lives.

The Art of Being Normal is a good book, although problematic due to the misgendering of David. The thing that I loved the most about The Art of Being Normal is it's not about being transgender. It's about two individual characters, and their friendship. Unlike other transgender stories I've read, there isn't a whole lot about what it means to be transgender, how that feels. It's there, it's just not the main focus of the story. David is transgender, not a lot of people know about it, and that's the stage in her life that she's in. The fact that's she's transgender is important to the story, because it's important to her identity, but, for David, it's more about her as an individual person. Everyone's lives, everyone's experiences are different. People who have read the story may disagree with me, but I can't explain myself further here without spoiling the story.

So, David goes to school with her two friends, and tries hard to ignore the comments she always gets. Most people call her "Freak Show", and she gets a lot of grief. She is bullied quite a bit, and it's really bloody awful, the extent to which some of it goes. The incident where Leo defends her, before he steps in, I was just dying inside on David's behalf for the utter humiliation David is put through. It's absolutely disgusting, and that all these people were either just standing around laughing and enjoying it all, or keeping their heads down and not getting involved had me fuming! It's not until Leo steps in and punches Harry, the bully, that anything stops. Nobody else does a thing. And it kills me.

Leo doesn't have a great life. His dad isn't around, and his mother is pretty useless and treats him like crap. He lives in a really rough town, and just wants to escape. Something happened earlier in the year that we don't know about, that has led him to move to Eden Park. Questions and rumours are flying all over the place. Eden Park is a very good school, and it has a zero policy for violence, and simply wouldn't take on a violent student - yet the rumours all say that Leo was expelled for sawing off a teacher's finger. So what's the truth? What is he really doing at Eden Park? I have to say I really didn't see his secret coming. Once I found out, and I looked back on all the little hints, I thought, "Of course!" but I just didn't see it before then.

The friendship between Leo and David is a really sweet one. I kept forgetting throughout the story that David is only 14, that she turned 14 at the very beginning of the book, and she can come across a little young sometimes. There were a few eye-roll inducing moments, but then I would remember her age, and let her off. Leo is 15, but in his final year, so he will be 16 soon, so their friendship is a little unlikely. They're different ages, they live completely different lives and have different interests, and Leo only grudgingly starts being friends with David when she asks him to tutor her in Maths. They slowly get to know each other, and towards the end of the book, they really make a difference to each other's lives. It's a really beautiful friendship!

The Art of Being Normal is such a really sweet book, but, as David is referred to with the wrong pronouns throughout the book, a problematic one due to the misgendering problems.

Thank you to David Fickling Books via Foyles for the reading copy.