History Literature / BeautifulMusicForUglyChildren

** Gabe thinks his new boss at the music store looks like an older version of Music/{{Beck}}.

* ForcedOutOfTheCloset: Gabe flirts with a caller named Mara who talks him into meeting her in person for a date. It doesn't take long for her to recognize him as Liz, who would always buy a Pepsi when Mara worked at the snack bar at school. Mara outs him to his fan club, the Ugly Children Brigade. By that point Gabe is out of school and doesn't have to deal with transphobic classmates, but half of the UCB's members leave and two people who go by [[Film/FridayThe13th Jason SerialKiller]] and [[Film/{{Scream}} Scream GonnaGetCha]] start posting death threats on the club's Facebook page. [[spoiler:Mara eventually feels guilty and tries to apologize, but Gabe thanks her for forcing him to live openly as himself instead of continuing to live a double life.]]

* AirGuitar: Gabe and John both play air guitar while listening to hair metal.

* QueerphobicHateCrime: In addition to threatening Gabe online, Jason and Scream harass and assault him in person, wearing the same masks as their namesakes. They also target his friends -- they go to Paige's workplace to push her and make death threats and crash an Ugly Children Brigade gathering, where [[spoiler:Scream [[BatterUp hits John with a baseball bat]], putting him in a coma. They turn out to be Gabe's former classmates, Paul Willard and Kyle Marshall. Paul wants revenge on Gabe because his girlfriend, Heather Graves, has been flirting with Gabe over text. Heather changes boyfriends every couple months, but Paul seems to be especially upset that she liked a trans guy more than him]].

* TakingTheKids: John used to be a MarriedToTheJob alcoholic. His wife got fed up and left him in 1974 with their thirteen-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son. John spent the next five years [[DrowningMySorrows getting drunk every day]] before going cold turkey on the anniversary of the separation. He's barely been in contact with his family since they left.

* IntergenerationalFriendship: Gabe's only real friend besides Paige is his next door neighbor John, an elderly DJ who was the first person in the United States to play Music/ElvisPresley on the radio. John is the only person Gabe knows who's as obsessed with music as he is. He even got Gabe his job at KZUK.

* TextualCelebrityResemblance: Gabe thinks his new boss at the music store looks like an older version of Music/{{Beck}}.

* SmallTownBoredom: Gabe lives in Maxfield, Minnesota, which according to him has zero excitement and only one good radio station.

''Beautiful Music for Ugly Children'' is a 2012 young adult novel by Kirstin Cronn-Mills. It follows Gabe Williams, an eighteen-year-old mostly-closeted trans boy, as he deals with the last few months of high school, tries to save up enough money to move out and transition, and works as a DJ on his show, Beautiful Music for Ugly Children.