REVIEW: Am I Normal Yet? , by Holly Bourne

I bought this book, yesterday, because I had heard many rave reviews by other bloggers. I must admit, I was sceptical. My experience with Holly Bourne's Soulmates hadn't exactly been pleasant, but I was willing to give Bourne a second chance, an opportunity to redeem herself,

She did not disappoint.

Synopsis (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?

My Review

This novel, as a reviewer, I must admit blew my mind.

It plopped me into the psyche of a teenage girl suffering with OCD and severe anxiety. It opened my eyes to so much, and help me understand so much. It has changed the way even I, someone whose family members work in mental health, think about mental issues.

What resonated a lot with me was it was a book about a girl obsessed with the elusive shadow that is the worshipped 'normal'. But it is also a book about a girl yearning for freedom. She wants to make mistakes and do  stupid things, she wants to be able to have everything, the good and the bad, that a 'normal' sixteen-year-old has.

It was painfully real, achingly honest, and refreshingly bittersweet. 

Evie was the most real protagonist I think I have come across in a book. She is, as she thinks, completely messed up, but that's what makes her a strong character. Her thoughts are harsh and scathing, and she hates herself so much for not being 'normal'. These flaws, these hamartias, are what add depth and dimension to Evie. 

Am I Normal Yet? celebrates feminism too, Bourne ritually adding in her feminist ideas, but ideas which are explained, justified, and which benefit all, even adding in how non-feminist society badly affects men too. Bourne inspires the reader a lot through this, and I think that Bourne has chosen a terrific medium with which to expose young people to feminist ideals. 

Sometimes it got a little repetitive, but I quite happily put that down to Evie's personality and psychology - she ritualises everything, and her thoughts even take patterns. 

I absolutely cannot describe how much I love this novel. It detached me from the world around me since I bought it and I just love this work.

It is safe to say that Bourne has redeemed herself, in my eyes, as I award her fantastic novel a rare: