The Art of Being Normal - Lisa Williamson

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson
Published on January 1, 2015 by David Fickling Books

Two boys. Two secrets.

David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth – David wants to be a girl.

On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal – to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan.

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…

This book is a hard one to review because it made me feel such a range of emotions, it honestly started pretty slow and for the first 100 or so pages I was kind of feeling only okay with it, like it was good but the writing was pretty simplistic and straight forward and I wasn't particularly attached to these characters. But I don't, one day I just picked it up and started to really read it, more than one chapter per time and when I see I was finishing it.

I think this is the first book to actual make me happy cry, there was one scene that I can't tell you about because of spoilers but I was grinning like a lunatic and I started crying because it was so beautiful and amazing and I was feeling all of the happy, fuzzy things. But not all was pretty, actual most of it was painful, we have a lot of scenes of bullying and also family troubles that is so, so hard to read about and I cried on some of those too, actual the bullying things most made me incredible raged with our society since I know there is a shit ton of kids out there that pass through the same time or worse.

The characters ended up gaining my attention with their stories, both Leo and David have their problems that are similar but also completely different, Leo's story touched me specially because of his past and his family situation that is so fragile, I just wanted to go to the pages and hug him and make everything be alright because oh my god you're only like 15 or 16 and already had to pass through all this, poor baby, but he probably would hate that so yeah.

Also can I get an amen that Williamson didn't turned this into a love story between Leo and David, it could easily go that route on some scenes and I loved that she didn't, they both have so many things to work out that it would be a terrible decisions to be involved on more than just friends, tbh their friendship was flawless and I just didn't want that to be tarnished. There is some romance on this one, is very instalove-y and first love kind of thing but it didn't bothered me, it was fitting to their age and it was important I think for the character growth.

If you're interest in knowing more about transexual people and/or want someone to understand more about this topic this is a great book, but since it isn't a book dedicated to teaching about this topic a introduction probably would be fitting. People looking for books that show bullying to younger subjects too, this is a great one and anyone that enjoys a good contemporary really, this is touching, funny, there is some painful scenes but it's an overall hopeful book about finding one self.