You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

February 6, 2021 Kirsty Hanson

One of the things that I wanted to do in 2021 was catch up on some of the amazing books that I had on my TBR. Lately, I’ve been reading A LOT of fantasy novels, and I realised that I had been ignoring all of the brilliant contemporary novels that I had just sitting on my shelves.

I had been wanting to read You Should See Me in a Crown ever since it was released, and in January 2021… I FINALLY got around to it!

Trigger warnings: homophobia, off-page death, outing, bullying

Liz Lighty has always believed she’s too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it’s okay — Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor.

But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz’s plans come crashing down . . . until she’s reminded of her school’s scholarship for prom king and queen. There’s nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington.

The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She’s smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?

Like I said before, I had been reading so much crime and fantasy, that I just needed something that was quick, fluffy, and adorable. And this was definitely the book that I needed.

You Should See Me in a Crown basically follows the same formula as other high school YA contemporaries: a love interest, the queen bee, friendship failures, and big gestures. Except… in this instance, there were a few differences. For one, we got to see a black main character! This was amazing. I’m so glad that more and more black authors are being recognised for their amazing work. Another difference that we saw in this book was that there was an f/f high school romance: something else that we hardly ever see, and it was so refreshing.

“I never needed this race, or a hashtag, or the king to be a queen. I was born royalty. All I had to do was pick up my crown.”

– Leah Johnson, You Should See Me in a Crown

Also… Can we talk about Jordan? He was such an amazing character. His sense of humour, his kindness… Everything about him is perfect and I love him. Enough said 😂.

When it comes to YA contemporaries, there’s always some element of friendship trouble, and when it came to Gabi, she annoyed me to the end of the Earth. She didn’t take Liz’s feelings into consideration AT ALL, and she was so selfish. At first, I really liked her but as the story went on, the things that she said and did just grinded my gears. The rest of the friendship group was enjoyable though! They bought that extra snazz to the group with their different talents.

“The thing about anxiety is that it looks different for everyone. I mean, yeah, of course there are some threads that run through all of us that mark us as, you know, anxious people: being restless, exhausted, just plain fidgety. But it’s the nuances that change the game.”

– Leah Johnson, You Should See Me in a Crown

The romance was adorable, and Mack was perfection. I loved her whole grunge aesthetic, so when I was reading it, I was like ‘HEY! IT’S ME! A cool emo in a book!’ 😂. The only thing that I didn’t like about the romance was the whole insta-love aspect of it. I’m really not into love at first sight things. I much prefer slow burns, but hey, you can’t have everything! With the insta-love aside, the romance was cool. It was brilliant to have a queer character go through the journey of coming to terms with her sexuality and feeling more comfortable with who she was even though *some* people really tried to hold her back.

With Liz being one of the very few black students in a predominantly white school, this is also gave Johnson the opportunity to create a discourse about racial discrimination, the history of the school, and how everyone should be respected and catered for.

“Just because it could be worse doesn’t mean you don’t get to acknowledge how much it sucks, you know.”

– Leah Johnson, You Should See Me in a Crown

Behind the scenes of the main storyline, there was also the relationship that Liz had with her grandmother and her brother. It was beautiful to see a teenager have a healthy relationship with her family, which is something that you don’t see very often, but also for there to be a conversation about sickle-cell disease, which affects a large amount of individuals of African descent.

Apart from Gabi, the other thing that I really couldn’t get was this school that had their own social media platform (what school even has that? Is that an American thing?), and at the prom, THEY HAD AIRPODS IN THE MOFO GIFT BAGS! EVERY. SINGLE. STUDENT. WAS GIVEN AIRPODS IN THEIR GIFT BAGS! That’s just…🙃. You know what I got at my prom? Nothing.

Overall, this was such an enjoyable book. Even though there were a few hiccups along the way, this book was everything I could have hoped for, and everything I could have wanted in a YA contemporary. If you haven’t read this book already, you really need to pick it up and read it!