Beautiful Music for Ugly Children (by Kristin Cronn-Mills)

Gabe was born as Elizabeth, but he’s always known that he’s a boy. Beautiful Music for Ugly Children sets out to be a bold book, by an author who definitely doesn’t shy away from tough topics like transgender kids. And although there is no doubt whatsoever that this topic – or Issue, for lack of a better word – is incredibly relevant in contemporary (high) school life[1], a book is not (or should not be) just “about an issue” and unfortunately that is exactly what’s wrong with Beautiful Music for Ugly Children.

The main culprit for that is firstly the clear intention of Cronn-Mills to educate her audience. Proof of that is also for instance the author’s note at the end of the book explaining the whole spectrum of transgenderism. Interesting to know, yes, but it gives away that Cronn-Mills is more interested in educating her audience than really grabbing a reader with unique characters and a great story.

This is even enhanced by the disjointed writing. Gabe’s narration feels forced somehow. There’s very little that made the cat really care for Gabe as a character. Sure, the things happening to him are singular, sure it’s a disgrace that there’s so much misunderstanding and hatred out there against transgenders, resulting in bullying and even physical violence. But the feeling you get is that it’s something “the reader absolutely has to sympathize with because it’s a bad thing that is happening to transgenders”, rather than that “it’s goddamn awful that Gabe who’s such a great person has to suffer all of this. I mean, come on people!”. What I want to say is that there’s a whole river between what the author wants me to feel about the main character and what the cat actually feels about the main character.

On top of that (and it’s a result of the mediocre writing) the problems that Gabe encounters (relationship issues, bullying, the problems his parents experience because of his transgenderism, the radio show, etc.) all feel like “And first this. Then this. Then that…” . There really isn’t any natural flow to the story. The tensions between Gabe and his parents, for instance. Gabe tells us that his parents find it difficult to accept who he is, but there’s very little interaction between Gabe and his parents for the reader to believe that… Also, when there actually is interaction, they keep on calling Gabe Liz, and Gabe doesn’t call them on it (I think he only does that once). Secondly, the DJ contest. Gabe is a self-proclaimed music nut. However, why does he connect with the songs on his show? The DJ contest itself is also glossed over in a mere paragraph or two, and never did Gabe discuss the relevance of the songs he chose. The main highlight of the music angle of the book were the chapter titles (all outlaying who was the new Elvis and why…).

Seriously, Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is probably an important book because of its topic. I’m sure lots of transgender kids will relate to or at least recognize what Gabe goes through. But as a piece of writing, a published book, it doesn’t really hold up, never transcending the label of LGBT or Issues book, which is a total pity. Other authors, like David Levithan or Emily M. Danforth prove that such a thing really is possible.

---

[1] According to this website, gender related bullying is staggeringly high: 9 out of 10 LGBT youth reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation. There’s also a clear link between gender related bullying and suicide amongst LGBT youth.

Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Story (edited by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones)

Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones have collected author stories, essays and poems with a common theme: bullying. The result is not just this book, but an online project, which you can find on their website Dear Bully and on Facebook. As a statement against bullying this book is a definite winner: respected YA writers (Alyson Noel, Lauren Kate, A.S. King, R.L. Stine, Lauren Oliver…) telling their own stories of being bullied, bullying others themselves, or just letting it happen, shows that bullying was and is a much bigger problem for growing teens than it may look for the adults in their lives.  As such, this book can be a great help for teens who are being bullied, if only as a token that “no, you are not alone” and “yes, it gets better”.

On the other hand, you have to be honest and say that from a literary point of view, this collection of stories is flawed… despite the fact that that wasn’t the first intention of the editors and writers here. Though there is a common theme, the literary quality is only scattered throughout with only a handful of memorable texts (R.L. Stine, Carolyn Mackler, Lauren Oliver, Cecil Castellucci). At its worst, the stories definitely get repetitive, and maybe even too same-ish, which is not something the topic should allow for, but the book does manage to end on a high note: the letter Carolyn Mackler received from a girl after she had read her book The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things (which in itself is one of the greatest girl empowering books!), and Mackler’s reply to this letter.

There is safety and comfort in numbers, is what the overall message here seems to be: we too got through it, and so will you. Here is our statement and support to you. And though this may be true, for the many kids experiencing bullying on a daily basis right now, it’s a bit of a mute argument. But still, there is much to admire here and the fact that so many authors showed their more vulnerable side, either as bully or the one being bullied is the added bonus.

Shine (by Lauren Myracle)

It’s a bit gauche to start off a review about an unfortunate bout of attention a book has gotten as a result of a mix-up… but in Shine’s case, the mix-up was well… embarrassing because a lot was at stake: a National Book Award.  The whole incident however, did show how classy Lauren Myracle was about it all, and truth be told, if it hadn’t been for the extra press as a result of the incident, the cat would probably not have bought and read Shine. The only other Myracle book the cat had read before Shine was ttyl, which for all its intents and purposes was targeted a bit too much at one particular gender and a tad too gimmicky for me to want to read more in that series of books. But anyway, Shine got all this new press, a lot of reviewers the cat respects seemed to like Shine a lot, so what the heck, let’s give Myracle another try.

And yes, one should never judge an author by just one book, because Shine is nothing – *nothing* – like the ttyl-series. It’s a lot less gender-specific, for one, and shows a great deal more the grandeur that Myracle is capable of as an author.

Shine deals with a hate crime in the small village of Black Creek in one of the many Southern states. 17-year-old Patrick, an openly gay boy in a close-knit Southern community, gets beat up in the most brutal of ways and left for dead. Rather than going along with the solution local law enforcement will probably give – out of towners did it – Cat, the former best-friend of Patrick is hell-bent on finding out who committed this heinous crime, as much as a way to deal with her own feelings of guilt for not having been a better friend to Patrick when he really needed it (Patrick was bullied constantly, even by his so-called friends), than as a way to find justice.

Despite the fact that the story is basically a pretty standard whodunit  at first sight, it is Myracle’s sense of setting and atmosphere that makes this book into such a joy to read. The prose in Shine reads like driving through the desolate wilderness that characterizes so many areas in the Bible Belt: her language is lush and atmospheric creating a vibe that you could only get from a writer who is intimately aware of her (Southern) roots. Throughout the story, the reader is confronted with the true tragedy of Southern villages like Black Creek: poverty. In this way, not just Patrick is discriminated against because he was gay, but almost every inhabitant of Black Creek suffers from their socio-economic circumstances, so much so that almost none of them see a way out of their misery. Dropping out of school, alcoholism, crystal meth addictions… poverty is a vicious circle spiraling ever more downwards. It is this bleak landscape that Myracle so aptly and hauntingly describes, and which makes of Shine a novel that should have been nominated for a National Book Award.

Kudos also to Myracle for supporting the Matthew Shepard foundation with this book.

Best Books Read in 2011!

In almost no particular order, this is the cat’s list of favorite books, read in 2011. (Books marked * were also published in 2011)

Please Ignore Vera Dietz (by A.S. King)

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party (by M.T. Anderson)

 Going Bovine (by Libba Bray)

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian (by Sherman Alexie)

Everybody Sees the Ants (by A.S. King) *

A Monster Calls (by Patrick Ness and Jim Kay) *

Divergent (by Veronica Roth) *

Boy Toy and Hero Type (both by Barry Lyga)

An Abundance of Katherines (by John Green)

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (By David Levithan & Rachel Cohn)

The Chocolate War (by Robert Cormier)

Boy Meets Boy (by David Levithan)

The Knife that killed me (by Anthony McGowan)

The Invention of Hugo Cabret (by Brian Selznick)

Everybody Sees the Ants (by A.S. King)

In many ways the test of true authorship is a writer’s second published work. If the first is good, that could just be a fluke, or it could be a genuine attestation of talent which then ought to be affirmed by that Hard Second Book.  And if that 2^nd work is really the touchstone for all other work of an author, then A.S. King has her work cut out for her. Topping a book like Please Ignore Vera Diet, Michael L. Printz Award and praised by almost everyone who read it,  is not an easy thing to accomplish. For the cat it’s a book that is very – *very* – high up the List of Ultimate YA Novels. Amy King did the clever thing with Everybody Sees the Ants: she showed enough (stylistic and other) similarities to Vera Dietz to lure her fans, yet didn’t take the easy way out and added a few historical and other layers and came up with an almost universal story about bullying.