What Makes You Beautiful

by Bridget Liang

Logan Osborne knows he likes boys, but has not come out to his family or at school, and no one knows that he likes to sometimes wear girls' clothes and makeup. When he starts at a school for the arts he finds a wider range of gender and orientation being accepted. Logan is attracted to Kyle, who has gay dads. But Kyle is straight. Logan finds he doesn't like the way gay boys treat him, and a disturbing hookup with a boy who is fetishistic about Logan's half-Asian background makes Logan even more confused about what he wants and who he is. Encouraged and supported by his friends at school, Logan experiments with nail polish and more feminine clothes in public. Logan begins questioning his gender and decides to use they pronouns while trying to figure things out. Logan meets a classmate's chosen mother, who is a transgender Chinese woman, and begins to come to terms with their gender identity. Realizing they are not a gay boy, but a transgender girl, Logan asks for people to call them Veronica. As a girl, does Veronica stand a chance with Kyle?

Genres: Young Adult, LGBT, Fiction, Queer, Transgender, Contemporary, Canada

168 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2019

About the author

Bridget Liang is a mixed race, queer, transfeminine, neurodiverse, disabled, fat fangirl. They came into their queerness in
Hamilton Ontario and co-founded RADAR Youth Group at the LGBTQ Wellness Centre (the Well), the first queer group in a high
school in Hamilton, and were instrumental in the passing of an equity policy in the HWDSB. They're a PhD candidate in the
Gender, Feminist, and Women's Studies Program at York University, a community researcher, workshop and group facilitator,
performance artist, and fiction writer. Much of their work revolves around intersectionality and arts-based research.

Reviews

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian]

Another hi-lo #YA novel, this one #OwnVoices and set in Toronto, about a trans feminine teen who is going to a new arts high school, one where there are tons of other LGBTQ+ kids. They start off identifying as gay, then move to using they/them pronouns, then to using the name Veronica. (Another great story about a queer youth moving from one identity to another! It's especially nice to see representation for a trans feminine / assigned male at birth character who's exploring a possible non-binary identity. )

They are accepted into a ragtag group of queer kids, who are fierce and adorable as teens who've come out in the Internet age with a plethora of possible identities open to them (one is a bi trans guy and another is asexual and homorantic; another as "local mixed-race, fat, crazy, queer girl"). I felt such affection for these sweet queer teens who are passionate about social justice, supporting each other, and performing arts.

While the characters representing oppression were done a bit heavy-handedly (the music teacher and the main character's dad), I didn't mind much as they didn't take up a ton of narrative space. I was so taken with Veronica and their friends, as well as a super cute romance with Veronica's fellow Asian comic book nerd friend Kyle.

I really appreciated how the book took racism in the gay community to task. It also mentioned quite a few awesome queer creators like Mariko Tamaki and real queer and youth organizations in Toronto. Such a cool introduction for queer teen readers in Toronto and beyond!

My favourite quote from Veronica:

"Kyle breaks the silence. 'So in a battle between Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, who do you think would win?'

'Neither. They'd team up and take down whoever pitted them against each other. Then Captain Marvel would ask out Wonder Woman.'"

Haha, best answer ever!

FYI, the current description on Goodreads is not the one on the back of the book, which does NOT use he pronouns.

[Merin]

I was super excited about this book. I want more teen trans protagonists!

Negatives: I wish it had gotten a good editor assigned because it was not ready for print. That was quite disappointing.

A lot of necessary content (solid characterization, basic descriptions, adequate details) felt skipped or inadequate. A lot of characters for a short novel! Conflicts felt weirdly flat and poorly described.

Positives: Lots of diversity and simple storylines that fit well in the short length. Some conversations were sweet and well written - the author has skills that were not consistently applied throughout.

[Sherilyn Moreton]

I wanted to like this book, but it was clearly not for me. The entire thing reads like a tumblr post, which isn't a bad thing, per se, but anyone who isn't queer/aware of queer language is going to spend the entire book with a question mark over their heads. There's a ton of language used that has zero clarification, and way too many characters. This book overall felt unfinished, and I didn't want to read the entire thing. Still, I'm glad it exists for the representation it provides, and I'm glad it was on full display at my tiny public library. More queer content in mainstream, please!!

My biggest gripe, and this just might be me, is that every single queer book these days that is set in the modern day, has the young queer protagonists in musical theatre. It's a tired stereotype and I'm over it. Not all queers like musical theatre.

Anyway. It's a quick read, less than 200 pages, and had a lot of potential, but like another reviewer said, this was clearly not ready to be published and needed a lot of extra work, as it felt unfinished.

[Audrey]

This book could have had a little bit more work put into it before it was published.

[Cameron Sant]

Hey look I read a book

[Karen Roettger]

This book fulfilled my PopSugar Challenge of a book by a trans or non-binary author.

[arden]

Can't believe I had to read about a rainbow bondage bear with my own two eyes.

[Carla]

I enjoyed this book and recommend giving it a read despite my low rating. It was a fun read and I never disliked it. The characters were sweet, and the book was very much a feel-good story. It captured the feeling of being an LGBTQ teen and being welcomed into your first LGBTQ+ friend group and safe space. The cast was delightfully representative, with trans characters, nonbinary characters, characters with diverse sexualities, Asian American and black characters, and autistic characters. I hope to see more work from this author in the future!

I have this book a low rating for a few reasons (and I should note that I don't always enjoy general fiction, and absolutely hated YA general fiction when I was a teenager, so some of these things might not bother someone who enjoys this genre): The characters felt underdeveloped. The way characters talked about LGBTQ+ issues established an expectation that everyone is familiar with LGBTQ+ terms and experiences, which may feel alienating for anyone (LGBTQ+ and others) not familiar with it. The conversations often felt awkward and forced. The main character's identity exploration seemed to go from resistant to transitioned way too quickly for the complex feelings that had been established early on. The fight in the music room and the outcome of the fight felt really contrived to me. The obsession the main character had over a crush made the sudden developments at the end of the book feel forced and super weird. Everyone's reactions to the casting of the play felt super weird, and nothing wound up happening with the play, so the whole situation felt like it had a lot of potential and fizzled.

[Emlikescake]

**2.5 STARS**
I’m 100% down with the plot and premise of this book, because literature can fall short when it comes to including and narrating more diverse voices, whether it’s gender, sexuality, race, religion, culture. So in that sense, What Makes You Beautiful is a needed addition to YA fiction. But the writing in this was just... well... I just didn’t think it was very good. I read a lot of YA novels, but this was bland and lacked any subtlety whatsoever. I felt like the author stood there beating my mind with the same prose and the same language and the same illustrations over and over and over again to make their point. Teens are smart, you don’t need to spell it out like this. So yeah as much as I didn’t like the writing, I upped this to 3* because I’m glad to see more gender-queer central character books.

[Jenna]

Felt extremely rushed and had this not been marketed as a hi-lo book, I would have ranked it a 2* read instead, for its often forced conversations and conflicts and two dimensional characters. It was, however, super simple to follow with clear narration. Veronica's group of friends were entertaining if slightly interchangeable in their instant bond.

The end portion, which actually covered Veronica's realization and transition, was rushed and everything resolved too easily. Wish the "villains" (the music teacher, Veronica's parents) had been a bit less of a cliche or at least one of them had been more open to a discussion.

A quick, diverse read? The romance was equally quick and not really satisfying.

[Karen]

I was expecting this to be fairly afterschool-special-y, like bare bones of a plot designed to tell us what it's like to be Asian and trans, and it was. It also had unidimensional transphobic parents who only appeared briefly to say offensive things, an eclectic group of instant friends who always understand exactly what the main character needed, unrealistic dialogue, and every sexuality and gender identity that the author could fit in the brief novel. No real character development. Normally I feel like if a book shows an underrepresented identity I can cut it some slack on not being that good, because it can still serve a role. But I thought this one was pretty bad.

[Jess]

Here's the thing... I was really excited to read this. I like the ideas the author was trying to portray and I like the story line. But the wording is not great. The novel should have been worked on a little more and maybe been to an editor or a different editor if there was one. I was 50 pages in and unable to finish. Not often I can give up on a book like this.

[Chase]

This was a funny, coming-of-age, life lesson novel. With its diverse characters and relatable main character, this short novel is for teen LGBTQ+ fans and their allies. I absolutely loved the ending. Giving it a 3.9 stars out of 5, I would recommend it to a friend.

[Magpie]

Easy to read young adult novel. Loved the local Toronto nods.
Great queer representation.
Played into stereotypes.
A little bit cheesey.

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

https://aspeccharactersoftheday.tumbl...

[Riska Sleepless]

This was so sweet omg

[Jordyn]

Great ho/lo ya novel!

[Burcu]

https://www.cyberdefense.net.tr

[Kimberly]

Wonderful book that helps you understand all we all want to be is ourselves and accepted for who that is.

[Isabelle | Nine Tale Vixen]

Recommended by Michelle Likes Things.