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Small Beauty
Coping with the death of her cousin, Mei abandons her life in the city to live in his now empty house in a small town. There she connects with his history as well as her own, learns about her aunt’s long-term secret relationship, and reflects on the trans women she has left behind.
Small Beauty explores the protagonist’s transness, but it also tenderly yet bitterly unpacks her experiences as a mixed-race person of Chinese descent, cycles of death and loss, and queer and intergenerational community. Small Beauty wanders through isolation, and then breaks it.
Small Beauty explores the protagonist’s transness, but it also tenderly yet bitterly unpacks her experiences as a mixed-race person of Chinese descent, cycles of death and loss, and queer and intergenerational community. Small Beauty wanders through isolation, and then breaks it.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 12, 2016
47 people are currently reading
7245 people want to read
About the author
Jia Qing Wilson-Yang
1 book49 followersjia qing wilson-yang is a mixed race trans woman living in Toronto. She likes to write poems and stories and music. Her writing has appeared in Bound to Struggle: Where Kink and Radical Politics Meet (ed. Simon Strikeback) and Letters Lived: Radical Reflections, Revolutionary Paths (ed. Sheila Sampath), and it will be appearing in the women of colour issue of Room magazine. She has recorded several acoustic albums and this one time was a drummer in a pop punk band. Small Beauty is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 220 reviews
February 22, 2019
I first heard about this book on the Can't Lit Podcast.
Blurb from author site: "The novel Small Beauty tells the story of Mei. Coping with the death of her cousin, she abandons her life in the city to live in his now empty house in a small town. There she connects with his history as well as her own, learns about her aunt’s long-term secret relationship, and reflects on the trans women she has left behind. Small Beauty was the recipient of the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction."
I'm always on the hunt for books about small lives with meaning and found it in this quiet novel. Mei is faced with living life on her own, with the silent consequences of decisions made by her family members. There are no big revelations and no Hallmark movie moments, just daily struggle and tiny victories, like leaving the house.
Blurb from author site: "The novel Small Beauty tells the story of Mei. Coping with the death of her cousin, she abandons her life in the city to live in his now empty house in a small town. There she connects with his history as well as her own, learns about her aunt’s long-term secret relationship, and reflects on the trans women she has left behind. Small Beauty was the recipient of the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction."
I'm always on the hunt for books about small lives with meaning and found it in this quiet novel. Mei is faced with living life on her own, with the silent consequences of decisions made by her family members. There are no big revelations and no Hallmark movie moments, just daily struggle and tiny victories, like leaving the house.
June 4, 2016
This book is more than a novel, it's a blueprint for survival.
April 6, 2023
narrative / transnarrative.
book / shadow-book.
small beauty / 小美
This is one of the most ambitious and complex challenges to queer/trans narrative convention I have ever read. While on its face, the story is simple — a young trans woman grapples with family and forgiveness in the wake of a massive loss — it soon reveals itself to be an onion whose core is never quite reached. Instead, we wander between life and death, ongoing present and long past, and into the space between internal and external monologue, to get a profoundly intersubjective account of what it is to be(come) trans: to continuously cross not only gender, but reality, sensemaking, and relationships.
Small Beauty is daringly and delicately narrativized and linked by myth and symbol: the goose, the park, the weather, the water. wilson-yang demands the reader approach this small novel with immense care, calls us to retreat, reread, and rethink our prior assumptions continuously as we move through her narrative landscape. I found myself slowing down almost as soon as I started this book, pausing to build relationships with characters whose importance was not readily apparent. I built mindmaps to understand how each disparate scene threaded to its kin.
Enjoy this book with patience and understanding, and bring page tabs to return to “precious” scenes. This is an elliptical read by design and not meant to give readers simple and immediate clarity. Instead, the book itself is the labyrinth of which its protagonist speaks: a maze which ends not at an exit, but a heart.
book / shadow-book.
small beauty / 小美
This is one of the most ambitious and complex challenges to queer/trans narrative convention I have ever read. While on its face, the story is simple — a young trans woman grapples with family and forgiveness in the wake of a massive loss — it soon reveals itself to be an onion whose core is never quite reached. Instead, we wander between life and death, ongoing present and long past, and into the space between internal and external monologue, to get a profoundly intersubjective account of what it is to be(come) trans: to continuously cross not only gender, but reality, sensemaking, and relationships.
Small Beauty is daringly and delicately narrativized and linked by myth and symbol: the goose, the park, the weather, the water. wilson-yang demands the reader approach this small novel with immense care, calls us to retreat, reread, and rethink our prior assumptions continuously as we move through her narrative landscape. I found myself slowing down almost as soon as I started this book, pausing to build relationships with characters whose importance was not readily apparent. I built mindmaps to understand how each disparate scene threaded to its kin.
Enjoy this book with patience and understanding, and bring page tabs to return to “precious” scenes. This is an elliptical read by design and not meant to give readers simple and immediate clarity. Instead, the book itself is the labyrinth of which its protagonist speaks: a maze which ends not at an exit, but a heart.
June 6, 2019
I devoured SMALL BEAUTY in one sitting yesterday and I LOVED it. Mei, a Chinese-Canadian trans women, can’t seem to shake the crushing loneliness her cousin Sandy’s death brought and moves into his empty house in the woods outside a small town in Ontario. Through interactions with the locals, phone calls with the trans women she left behind in the city, and visitations by her past relatives, Mei grapples with her loss, life, family queerness and identity. The narrative is interwoven with stories from Mei’s past where we learn about a pattern of death and departure and the (righteous) anger that Mei holds, “taking care of it, quietly raising it.” The book is short, the prose simple but this one has given me all the feelings. I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts into appropriate words so I will end with an excerpt from the review on the @lambdaliterary website (2017 prize winner for Transgender Fiction): “Wilson-Yang gives us more than a novel in Small Beauty, she gives us a blueprint to surviving this hostile world as a mixed-race woman.”
April 11, 2017
I love when you read a book without many expectations and it exceeds them easily. This was so great, I loved it. Read my full review on my blog
June 2, 2021
I wrote some more about this book here: https://booksandbakes.substack.com/p/...
4.5 Wow, I absolutely loved this. Loved every moment. It's a stunning, sparse, quiet novel about grief, family, queerness, lineage. Mei is a trans woman whose cousin has just died; she spends the next year living in his house, grieving and remembering. The story isn't linear, and it works so so well. As do the few small sections told from two different POVs. Each time I put this book down I was impatient to pick it back up again. The writing is lovely and so are the spaces between the words. So real, so beautifully crafted. Complicated characters. Funny, sad. I loved everything about it, I can't believe I've been sitting on this for a few years.
One thing I loved deeply about this novel is how it explores the ways that homophobia and transphobia cut queer people off from each other. There are so many different kinds of queer people and queer lives in this novel. They ways in which they hurt each other, or are invisible to each other, or don't find each other until it's almost too late--are so true and poignant. It's so skillfully done, it took my breath away. And yet, with all the sadness and heartbreak, this book left me feeling so hopeful, like I'd been washed clean, refreshed.
wilson-yang also does something that's hard to do, but that I'm starting to see more and more queer and trans authors do, and I love it: she writes honestly about queer suffering, and does not look away from it, and yet the narrative is never about queer suffering. I think this is starting to happen more and more, with ownvoices books where queer people are telling our own stories, from the inside. The queer suffering in this novel is just as horrific and painful as it is anywhere, but it doesn't take over. It's not the center of the story. It's not the heart that drives the action. There are no lessons to be learned from it, no Bigger Point. It's so refreshing to read.
Yeah, this book really did it for me. Do not wait on this gem.
4.5 Wow, I absolutely loved this. Loved every moment. It's a stunning, sparse, quiet novel about grief, family, queerness, lineage. Mei is a trans woman whose cousin has just died; she spends the next year living in his house, grieving and remembering. The story isn't linear, and it works so so well. As do the few small sections told from two different POVs. Each time I put this book down I was impatient to pick it back up again. The writing is lovely and so are the spaces between the words. So real, so beautifully crafted. Complicated characters. Funny, sad. I loved everything about it, I can't believe I've been sitting on this for a few years.
One thing I loved deeply about this novel is how it explores the ways that homophobia and transphobia cut queer people off from each other. There are so many different kinds of queer people and queer lives in this novel. They ways in which they hurt each other, or are invisible to each other, or don't find each other until it's almost too late--are so true and poignant. It's so skillfully done, it took my breath away. And yet, with all the sadness and heartbreak, this book left me feeling so hopeful, like I'd been washed clean, refreshed.
wilson-yang also does something that's hard to do, but that I'm starting to see more and more queer and trans authors do, and I love it: she writes honestly about queer suffering, and does not look away from it, and yet the narrative is never about queer suffering. I think this is starting to happen more and more, with ownvoices books where queer people are telling our own stories, from the inside. The queer suffering in this novel is just as horrific and painful as it is anywhere, but it doesn't take over. It's not the center of the story. It's not the heart that drives the action. There are no lessons to be learned from it, no Bigger Point. It's so refreshing to read.
Yeah, this book really did it for me. Do not wait on this gem.
June 29, 2022
Small Beauty is a poignant, emotional story that stole my breath and filled my heart. I loved this book so completely, the rare spot of contemporary fiction that resonates just so against my soul.
Cw for transphobia and homophobia, assault, familial rejection, death.
Cw for transphobia and homophobia, assault, familial rejection, death.
March 10, 2017
Beautiful, meditative book about the experiences of Mei, a mixed-race Canadian trans woman. This story gives the reader the opportunity to spend some quiet time with Mei as she is dealing with past and present grief and trauma. The mostly rural setting of the book provides beautiful imagery as a backdrop to haunting scenes of loneliness and loss.
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January 7, 2018Several people recommended me this recent literary novel, and even more asked for my opinion, so here it is :) I think this book is a good way to start the year (and not just because it’s winter-themed). It’s a Lambda award winner and that happened for a reason.
Read my full review here:
http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/nove...
Source of the book: Bought with my own money
Read my full review here:
http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/nove...
Source of the book: Bought with my own money
April 28, 2022
4/5 stars
it's like a stone, anger. A grudge. You're supposed to use it to break through something then let it go.
brb while I cry over the ending of this novella. While the pacing felt off at places, it was overall a really heart-wrenching story on grief and moving forward.
it's like a stone, anger. A grudge. You're supposed to use it to break through something then let it go.
brb while I cry over the ending of this novella. While the pacing felt off at places, it was overall a really heart-wrenching story on grief and moving forward.
February 20, 2021
absolutely stunning. 4.5 stars
November 13, 2025
i liked how accessible this was to read and the way it dives into the perspectives of different people that have hurt and love each other. after my discussion in class, i really appreciate it a lot more than i did upon finishing, especially in comparison to the repression and attempt at assimilation in the well of loneliness. this feels far more real and far more queer. i think it has far more to say now.
September 29, 2023
Rep: biracial Chinese Canadian sapphic trans mc, lesbian mc, Chinese Canadian mc
CWs: transphobia, transphobic violence
CWs: transphobia, transphobic violence
February 17, 2024
This novel was beautiful, beautiful in a way that describes the pain and anger one might go through, and how all the hurt and pain can accumulate into fire. Consequently, this fire may break oneself, or it may be used like a stone to break “a thunderstorm”. Then let it go.
Mei is of mixed descent with Chinese ancestry. She is also trans. Being the only Asian, albeit half white, in a town in Canada, Mei by default experiences racism. What causes more pain to Mei, however, is her mother not being accepting of her being trans. She has Annette and Connie, other Asian trans women whom she befriends, and her older cousin Sandy. However, Mei has to grapple with grief as Sandy passes away and she is to live in his now empty house. Leaving her life behind (and her friends), she sets out to the small town where her cousin lived and discovers more of his life and also her aunt’s (Sandy’s mother). She learns about the intergenerational relationships and queerness running through her family whilst dealing with loss, grief, and isolation, and to break this hopelessness pattern.
Sidenote: This book really has been to places with me, from the Netherlands all the way to Korea, and finally being read and finishing the book by these enthralling waterfalls where I am as of writing this. It’s safe to say this book holds a special place in me, somewhere.
Mei is of mixed descent with Chinese ancestry. She is also trans. Being the only Asian, albeit half white, in a town in Canada, Mei by default experiences racism. What causes more pain to Mei, however, is her mother not being accepting of her being trans. She has Annette and Connie, other Asian trans women whom she befriends, and her older cousin Sandy. However, Mei has to grapple with grief as Sandy passes away and she is to live in his now empty house. Leaving her life behind (and her friends), she sets out to the small town where her cousin lived and discovers more of his life and also her aunt’s (Sandy’s mother). She learns about the intergenerational relationships and queerness running through her family whilst dealing with loss, grief, and isolation, and to break this hopelessness pattern.
Sidenote: This book really has been to places with me, from the Netherlands all the way to Korea, and finally being read and finishing the book by these enthralling waterfalls where I am as of writing this. It’s safe to say this book holds a special place in me, somewhere.
August 4, 2025
This is stunning, and I feel like it should be more well known? Really beautiful work of trans litfic up there with Nevada and Detransition, Baby, and even reminds me of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.
This follows Mei, a Chinese-Canadian trans lesbian who leaves the city following her cousin’s death to live in his now empty home in rural Saskatchewan. So much here around family, both biological and found, in all its messy imperfections. I especially loved the exploration of intergenerational queer community and working class immigrants.
The examination of Anger also felt so moving to me and I love the dream/ghost sequence where she confronts the way her anger is both essential and limiting, how sometimes you need to burn away the forest to facilitate new growth.
This follows Mei, a Chinese-Canadian trans lesbian who leaves the city following her cousin’s death to live in his now empty home in rural Saskatchewan. So much here around family, both biological and found, in all its messy imperfections. I especially loved the exploration of intergenerational queer community and working class immigrants.
The examination of Anger also felt so moving to me and I love the dream/ghost sequence where she confronts the way her anger is both essential and limiting, how sometimes you need to burn away the forest to facilitate new growth.
December 4, 2023
i love books that feel like ramblings, ones that find a protagonist in the middle of something, if that makes sense.
small beauty finds main character mei in the middle of several great personal losses of friends and family and follows her as she navigates dealing with said loss, as well as cherished and nightmarish memories from her past. the book explores the intersections between trans female identity/experience, disconnection from one’s most native home/life in the diaspora, and finding community in fragmented reality. small beauty handles these topics with grace—wilson-yang’s writing style is beautiful, haunting, and addictive. i loved all of the characters and relationships that she explored within the less than 200 pages. i could really feel wilson-yang’s own personal identity come through mei’s experience in the book, to the point where i would sometimes forget that i was reading fiction.
all in all, this is a sad and beautiful book! brava, jia qing wilson-yang!!
small beauty finds main character mei in the middle of several great personal losses of friends and family and follows her as she navigates dealing with said loss, as well as cherished and nightmarish memories from her past. the book explores the intersections between trans female identity/experience, disconnection from one’s most native home/life in the diaspora, and finding community in fragmented reality. small beauty handles these topics with grace—wilson-yang’s writing style is beautiful, haunting, and addictive. i loved all of the characters and relationships that she explored within the less than 200 pages. i could really feel wilson-yang’s own personal identity come through mei’s experience in the book, to the point where i would sometimes forget that i was reading fiction.
all in all, this is a sad and beautiful book! brava, jia qing wilson-yang!!
July 7, 2023
This was an enjoyable but heavy read. It tackles grief by way of exploring gender, transphobia, and the generational inheritance of both ancestral wisdom and trauma.
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“All the things that hurt you, all the things you are sensitive about, all scattered kindling all around your heart. And with enough pressure, enough heat, it burst into flames. That's the kind of anger you have… That fire is going to help you see more and more things that make you angry, things that should make you angry. But if you've got that fire already raging away around your heart, and you keep letting those things feed that fire, you never get to have your heart back. It's too hot to touch.”
———————————————————————————
“All the things that hurt you, all the things you are sensitive about, all scattered kindling all around your heart. And with enough pressure, enough heat, it burst into flames. That's the kind of anger you have… That fire is going to help you see more and more things that make you angry, things that should make you angry. But if you've got that fire already raging away around your heart, and you keep letting those things feed that fire, you never get to have your heart back. It's too hot to touch.”
April 22, 2024
This book was unexpectedly dark lol. It was very interesting to read about an Asian transwoman against the backdrop of a Canadian small town. The story was beautifully written and a bit unsettling at times while heartwarming at others. There is some symbolism I haven’t quite wrapped my head around yet but I can’t wait to play with them in the back of my head for a bit
June 18, 2024
a quiet simple story that carries so much weight
"It's important, Sai Mui. It's protection. That fire is a light. It lets you see everything that started this is as bad as it feels. You need the fire to see the kindling, to light the darkness, to burn away the non-sense."
"It's important, Sai Mui. It's protection. That fire is a light. It lets you see everything that started this is as bad as it feels. You need the fire to see the kindling, to light the darkness, to burn away the non-sense."
October 22, 2024
I think I would have really really loved this if I had been in the right mood? I still loved it quite a bit even in the wrong mood.
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September 10, 2017This is one of the most touching, sensitive, wonderful books I've read. It's quiet with grief and sorrow and unacknowledged anger, and compassion and the struggle it takes to live at the intersection of myriad marginalizations that render the space the protagonist occupies into an infinitesimal niche.
The small beauty emerges thus in this tiny space. Mei's losses, almost as many as the influences on her life, become less overwhelming than a mere fact of life. Yet wilson-yang manages to keep despair at bay by shifting perspectives, by placing the reader in the point of view of Mei's close ones, to show how complex life is, how there is life and empathy to be gained from that complexity, how joy is to be found in the irreducibility of a person's existence to individuality. Mei's families--blood and chosen--guide her constantly while also being at odds with one another, another trait in diasporic trans/queer lives, in which duty and responsibility cannot be easily cleaved into separate compartments. The way this genealogy of influence appears through Mei's aunt adds to the many facets of this wonderful novel.
Highly recommended
The small beauty emerges thus in this tiny space. Mei's losses, almost as many as the influences on her life, become less overwhelming than a mere fact of life. Yet wilson-yang manages to keep despair at bay by shifting perspectives, by placing the reader in the point of view of Mei's close ones, to show how complex life is, how there is life and empathy to be gained from that complexity, how joy is to be found in the irreducibility of a person's existence to individuality. Mei's families--blood and chosen--guide her constantly while also being at odds with one another, another trait in diasporic trans/queer lives, in which duty and responsibility cannot be easily cleaved into separate compartments. The way this genealogy of influence appears through Mei's aunt adds to the many facets of this wonderful novel.
Highly recommended
November 20, 2018
A touching tale that jumps around in its chronology about a young trans woman dealing with the deaths in her family and the secrets they inevitably reveal.
Well written, with a quick pace, but never feeling rushed; Wilson-Yang captures the life of her characters with ease. Each character is unique and diverse and have an interesting world-view.
This book is a low-stakes observation of self in relation to family and small-town ideals. Where an mixed race trans woman attempts to find her future in after the loss of her family members.
If you like introspective literature with a focus on immigrant families and LGBTQ+ identities, with a touch of the unreal: read this book.
Well written, with a quick pace, but never feeling rushed; Wilson-Yang captures the life of her characters with ease. Each character is unique and diverse and have an interesting world-view.
This book is a low-stakes observation of self in relation to family and small-town ideals. Where an mixed race trans woman attempts to find her future in after the loss of her family members.
If you like introspective literature with a focus on immigrant families and LGBTQ+ identities, with a touch of the unreal: read this book.
October 3, 2017
Not sure if this book is for cis people, but I'd still recommend you read it and maybe try to understand. It was a really quick read, and I didn't really understand the Point until the end, but yeah this book took a part of my soul from me. I really don't have words for the feelings contained in this book.
December 18, 2023
Really beautifully written and good ideas, I just think the execution fell a bit flat for me. The scope of the story was much smaller than I typically like, the jumping around in POVs and time was a little too confusing for this short of a book, and not much really happened. Felt like I didn’t know the characters so I didn’t care.
October 6, 2024
Had to read this for my contemporary queer issues class, and despite enjoying the theme of grief and self discovery as well as learning about your family history…. I just didn’t really enjoy the writing style or the back and forth flashbacks. Nothing from the book really stood out to me, and I feel like I have read better queer literature.
December 12, 2016
This book broke my heart.
It is exactly what it says on the cover: a small beauty.
It is exactly what it says on the cover: a small beauty.
March 30, 2024
nie dobré, nie zlé. štýl písania mi veľmi vyhovoval a postavy boli fajne napísané. možno na ocenenie by som potrebovala správne mentálne rozpoloženie. ale pekná obálka! hus MVP.
December 25, 2020
I enjoyed this trans novel, particularly the Canadian small town settings. I very much enjoyed the dialogue between the trans women, and Mei (protagonist) and her cousin Sandy. I also loved the temporal back-and-forth nature of the narrative.
Wilson-Yang was especially insightful about the second and third- generation relational issues within a Chinese-Canadian family. The prose around this was handled deftly. There are also some beautiful observations of the city and the natural world from Mei's perspective as she discovers more about her family's history.
The lesbian characters in this narrative are not particularly well developed, with one verging towards caricature and stereotype. I understand the need for a problematic and flawed character with prejudices, but I think Wilson-Yang could have been more generous with observation and emotional nuance. But maybe this shows Mei's outlook, something her ancestors come to tell her about : that she is kindling and quick to anger.
Wilson-Yang was especially insightful about the second and third- generation relational issues within a Chinese-Canadian family. The prose around this was handled deftly. There are also some beautiful observations of the city and the natural world from Mei's perspective as she discovers more about her family's history.
The lesbian characters in this narrative are not particularly well developed, with one verging towards caricature and stereotype. I understand the need for a problematic and flawed character with prejudices, but I think Wilson-Yang could have been more generous with observation and emotional nuance. But maybe this shows Mei's outlook, something her ancestors come to tell her about : that she is kindling and quick to anger.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 220 reviews