Juno Dawson: A Brief Summary

Juno Dawson is a British writer of young adult nonfiction and fiction novels that include LGBT themes. Dawson published his 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 in raised in West Yorkshire in the UK and was a schoolteacher for several years before she decided to become an author. She started writing while she was still a teacher and only quit her job when her novels became successful. Her 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

He writes novels that any reader would like to send to their teenage selves. They are novels of self-discovery that speaks 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. They are novels about love, about friendships and about growing up. Some love relationships last and some do not and some friendships last and some do not 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 the characters such as Toria, Ryan, Katie and their friends one sees experiences that they may likely have 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

She leaves her dreary backwater town to go become a New Girl only to find that she is the center of attention in her new home where everyone seems to know everyone. 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 the 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 his 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