Having ALL the opinions with…Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne

am i normal yet

*All reviews I write are spoiler free*

As some of you may know, I take part in #ukyachat on twitter, hosted by Lucythereader every week (there’s one tonight at 8pm UK time), and during so many of the chats, this book has been mentioned. It didn’t take me long to add it to my TBR…and then buy it!

So let’s talk about Am I Normal Yet?

Am i normal yet

Title: Am I Normal Yet?

Author: Holly Bourne

Publisher: Usborne

Series Status: The 1st book in the Normal Series

Number of Pages: 434

Synopsis

(Found on back cover and Goodreads)

All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list…

But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amber and Lottie the truth about herself, how will she cope when she falls in love?

Review

Oh. My. Goodness.

Where do I start?

Let’s start at the beginning, like always, shall we? That seems like a good plan.

Because right from the very first page, I fell in love with the writing style. That’s 100% the truth. I started reading it on my journey to college, but only managed to read about 8 pages during that short time. But even with those few pages, when Abbie sort of jokingly asked how it was so far, I started laughing and said something along the lines of “I actually love it already!”

So you can pretty much guess how well the rest of the book went.

The writing style is the reason I loved it from the first page. It’s written from Evie’s point of view, with the book seeming like a sort of diary. The chatty style caught me up in the story immediately, and I felt like I was friends with Evie, learning her story as I went. All the way through there’s small scribbles of thoughts almost interrupting the story, keeping you in line with her train of thought. Evie’s voice just seemed so infectious – she was honest, and I admired her for it.

This book really brought out the opinionated side of me. It tackles so many important issues – feminism, mental illness, stigma, sexism. And yet…it manages to stay entertaining. Through Evie voice I learned quite a lot from this book, and solidified my own opinions in the process. I agreed with her rants, and became rallied up thinking “why don’t more people talk about this?!?”

I found it a really fascinating read. I sped through it, finishing it in just a few days, both because of my interest and the chatty style of the writing. I just couldn’t understand how I managed to learn so much from this book without even realizing I was broadening my mind. It’s incredible. And I know this book will really stay with me for years to come.

Though I’ve raved about this book for ages now, it didn’t quite make it to my favourites shelf. I’m not sure why yet. Maybe I’ll figure it out, maybe I won’t. But I do know this book will receive the second highest rating from me, and I will definitely be reading the second book in the series!