Beautiful Music For Ugly Children, Kristin Cronn-Mills

Beautiful Music For Ugly Children, Kristin Cronn-Mills, 2012, 271 pages


    Gabe is about to graduate high school and seems to be on the cusp of everything. Except that most people do not know him by the name Gabe, they know him as Elizabeth. He has a radio show on his town's community station called Beautiful Music For Ugly Children, (much like St.Louis's own KDHX ) where he is comfortable being Gabe on the air.  The story follows Gabe through his coming out to his community as a trans-dude and some of the adversity he faces as a result of this. 
     The writing is pretty good, (except some of the music references are off, in my humble opinion) but I felt like Gabe's story could have been a bit more nuanced as per his developing gender identity.  I do however, think this was an earnest effort by the author, who did her research. Describing an experience like transitioning gender is no easy task, especially if the author is a cis-gendered person.  What saved the book for me, was that she included a note that functioned like a PSA at the end, although I might have like to have seen it at the beginning of the book.  Again, this would be a great book for questioning youth, as Gabe's character is fleshed out in a believable way.