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soodleth 's review for:
Beautiful Music for Ugly Children
by Kirstin Cronn-Mills
Today I read Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills for the second time. The first time was last summer just after I’d bought it from Gay’s The Word. I sat down in a park just found the corner from the British Museum and read it all.
Sometimes reading a book in one sitting can skew my opinion so I wanted to read it again and no, it was just as good as I remember.
I’ve read a few books with trans main characters and honestly this is the only one I’ve read so far where being trans isn’t the only thing going on in it. Gabe feels like a real person and while coming out is an important part of the story, his radio show and his feelings for girls are also important parts of the story. Coming out is a blip in his story, not the whole thing.
Gabe is out to his family who ignore it and continue to deadname him. A lot of his family life resonates with me because I’m in a similar situation, especially last year just before I started college.
I’ve included part of a letter from the author who looked back on the five years since she wrote the book and while what she says is absolutely true, the portrayal of Gabe felt far more authentic to me than any of the other books with trans main characters I’ve read that were written by cis authors (all women funnily enough. I’ve read two books with trans girl MCs written by trans women and one written by a genderqueer author but no trans men. The Danish Girl is written by a cis man though I haven’t read it yet.) so she definitely did a good job.
This book is definitely going on my list of top LGBT+ books
Sometimes reading a book in one sitting can skew my opinion so I wanted to read it again and no, it was just as good as I remember.
I’ve read a few books with trans main characters and honestly this is the only one I’ve read so far where being trans isn’t the only thing going on in it. Gabe feels like a real person and while coming out is an important part of the story, his radio show and his feelings for girls are also important parts of the story. Coming out is a blip in his story, not the whole thing.
Gabe is out to his family who ignore it and continue to deadname him. A lot of his family life resonates with me because I’m in a similar situation, especially last year just before I started college.
I’ve included part of a letter from the author who looked back on the five years since she wrote the book and while what she says is absolutely true, the portrayal of Gabe felt far more authentic to me than any of the other books with trans main characters I’ve read that were written by cis authors (all women funnily enough. I’ve read two books with trans girl MCs written by trans women and one written by a genderqueer author but no trans men. The Danish Girl is written by a cis man though I haven’t read it yet.) so she definitely did a good job.
This book is definitely going on my list of top LGBT+ books