Title: What Makes You Beautiful
By: Bridget Liang
Publisher: Lorimer
Publication Date: February 5, 2019
Pages: 168
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?
MY REVIEW
What Makes You Beautiful is an eye opening story about a high school student named Logan who struggled with gender identity, sexuality, and cultural family issues. Logan starts to accept the fact that he is not a male, but another gender and shows it as Veronica.
This book is showing the struggles in the mind of a high school student who’s Asian family is stuck in their traditional ways and won’t accept Logan for who he really is. The support and help from his friends and allies through his day to day life show what people can be like if they open their eyes and ears and listen to what young people in the LGBTQ+ community have to say and want you to hear.
As a parent of a teen in the LGBTQ+ community, this story hits home. Reading a story from a young teen's view going through this makes me sad that not every kid has a supportive family, which is something I could never do to my child. I don't care who they love or what gender they identify with just as long as they are happy, being true to themselves and alive. That's all a parent should want for their kid. I would recommend this book to all my family members and friends just so they can see what could be going on through a teen's at LGBTQ+ community. A 10/10 book that I highly recommend for those who don’t fully understand someone going through transition.
Disclosure: All opinions are my own. I received the above mentioned book at no cost for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received.
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