The Art of Being Normal: A Novel

This “wonderful” young adult novel about the friendship between two British transgender teens “brings a fresh perspective in contemporary LGBTQ drama” (VOYA, starred review).

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 his class 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, and soon everyone knows that Leo used to be a girl.

As David prepares to come out to his family and transition into life as a girl and Leo wrestles with figuring out how to deal with people who try to define him through his history, they find in each other the friendship and support they need to navigate life as transgender teens as well as the courage to decide for themselves what normal really means.

“A welcome, needed novel.” —Kirkus Reviews

“An important addition to collections for its first-person perspectives on the experiences and inner lives of transgender teens.” —School Library Journal

© 2024 Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Ebook): 9780374302399

Release date

Ebook: 2 July 2024