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Juno Dawson is a British writer of young adult nonfiction and fiction novels that include LGBT themes. Dawson published their first novel, “Hollow Pike,” in 2012 and has never looked back since then, going on to become one of the most popular upcoming novelists. Dawson was born and raised in West Yorkshire in the UK and was a schoolteacher for several years before they decided to become an author. They started writing while they were still a teacher and only quit their job when their novels became successful. Their novels tend to feature LGBT characters, which Dawson as a transgender person often advocates for. Dawson’s breakout work was the 2014 published “This Book is Gay,” a novel that became popular as a manual for understanding life as an LGBT person. The novel that had a lot of sexually explicit content and profanity received much backlash with the Alaskan residents of Wasilla signing a petition to get the book out of the city’s public library.
Juno Dawson came out in 2015 as a transgender person and asserted that they had begun to transition into a woman for the past one and a half years. They went on to write about their experiences in transitioning in Glamour magazine. In 2017, they published their first adult novel, “The Gender Games,” that focused on their life experiences and issues of gender. They are a School Role Model for the LGBT charity Stonewall. Their 2016 novel “Mind Your Head,” which was something of a sequel to “This Book Is Gay,” is a manual about mental health aimed at Young Adults. Outside of their writing, they are a regular contributor to Newsnight, This Morning, Channel 5 News, ITV News, Front Row, BBC Women’s Hour, The Guardian, Glamour Magazine, and Attitude Magazine on issues of education, literature, identity, and sexuality. Their novels have been translated into more than ten languages across the globe and have received much critical acclaim from some of the biggest literary publications in the world. Before they began writing seriously, they used to write “Doctor Who” pulp fiction before they ventured into journalism. As a young journalist, they wrote for a popular newspaper in Brighton, where they had a syndicated column and also interviewed luminaries including Atomic Kitten and Steps. They currently live in Brighton where they spend most of their time writing novels, listening to pop music, watching horror films, and Doctor Who.
What makes Juno Dawson such a great writer is that they can create realistic characters with distinctive voices. They write novels that any reader would like to send to their teenage selves. Their novels of self-discovery speak to the need of young adults seeing it as fine to make mistakes. Dawson does assert that any teenager should have a right to be what or who they are or want to be as long as they remain true to themselves. Their novels are about love, about friendships, and about growing up. Some love relationships last and some do not, and the same goes for friendships, but that does not mean that they are not as important in one’s life. The novels are a realistic portrayal of teenage relationships as they tackle the issues that all teenagers struggle with as they try to understand friendship and relationships. Through characters such as Toria, Ryan, Katie, and their friends, one sees experiences that they have likely gone through or are still going through as young adults. Dawson’s novels are fantastic novels that tackle sensitive and difficult subjects while throwing in romance, friendships, and gender issues without becoming overly preachy. The novels do not make an attempt to make their readers feel or think a certain way, but rather pose questions that one may not have considered before then.
“Cruel Summer” is an excellent novel by Juno Dawson about a fictional teenage murder. The novel combines adolescent drama reminiscent of “Pretty Little Liars” and “Scream’s” crazy violence and humor. The lead character in the novel is Ryan, who is acting out his life that is something of a movie taking place in a fantastic fictional studio. When the novel opens, Ryan is spending his holidays at Katie’s, one of his best friend’s villa in Spain. He is in Spain where their friend had introduced many of her former schoolmates for a long put-off reunion. For Ryan, who is looking forward to starring in a film, some friends seem to be the perfect fit for his picture. Katie would be perfect as the Good Girl, Alisha would make a great Bad Girl and the Jock would have to be Greg. Ben, one of his oldest friends, is the Geek and the New Girl slot would be filled up with Erin, who happens to be Greg’s girlfriend. Ryan believes that he knows the ending of his low-budget Spanish survival picture. However, he is in for a big surprise as fate has prepared quite a violent end to his film. The novel is full of secrets, a murder, and British wit, and best of all a macabre mystery.
“All of the Above” is an exhilarating novel about a girl named Victoria, shortened to Toria, who leaves her Brompton-on-Sea home to go to another school and town. She leaves her dreary backwater town to become a New Girl, only to find that she is the center of attention in her new home where everyone seems to know each other. Toria has always found it difficult to make friends until she bumps into Daisy and her crew of friends. They immediately become fast friends, with Toria hoping that they will be everything she has ever wanted to find in friends. One of the most poignant things about the novel is the way in which the author so eloquently portrays female teenage friendships. Their experiences of the sixth form, their worries, their relationships, their problems, and the way they act and talk are so real that it is hard to imagine that Dawson, the author, lived much of their young adult life as a man. With so many young adult novels out there where teenagers seem not to act their age, Dawson’s novel is a refreshing take on the life of female teenagers that are just as lovable as they are flawed.
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