Cassandra Truth: Leo's mother claims his father abandoned her when she was still pregnant, which Leo scoffs at.

Uptown Girl: Alicia is from a much wealthier background than her crush Leo (see also Wrong Side of the Tracks). The two end up getting drunk in a pub, where Kate expresses feeling overjoyed at wearing the right clothes, and Leo does karaoke, albeit terribly. Hopefully, with books such as this one, we will begin to grow out of the default straight, white, cisgender characters that dominate the shelves and expand the horizons of YA diversity, which has been happening more and more in recent times. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. Reasonable Authority Figure: Mr Toolan, head teacher at Eden Park school, has a zero tolerance policy on physical violence, though he doesn't appear to do much where verbal bullying is concerned.Just a paraphrased example Kate says near the end about her parents "how freaky it must be to see their son being dressed up as a girl.

The Art of Being Normal: A Novel by Lisa Williamson is an uplifting story about two teenagers set in the modern day in the United Kingdom.Kate believes she will never truly be happy in her own skin, but the arrival of a mysterious new student soon changes everything. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. Satellite Love Interest: Zachary Olsen doesn't get much characterization outside of existing as Kate's handsome, popular crush who doesn't seem aware that she even exists, nor does he get any lines of dialogue. After rereading reviews by trans readers, I'm lowering my rating to two stars given the problematic portrayals of trans characters in this book.

Some bullying does takes place in the book, but it isn’t treated seriously; while in reality, prejudice against transgender people is pretty severe. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. I enjoyed this immensely, it's very easy to read and I liked both of the dual POVs (I also appreciated the use of different fonts for both just to keep me on track!

I get fiercely protective of those being bullied…reading it makes my stomach tie up in knots and I want to crawl into my Kindle and make it right.