Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne

Am I Normal Yet? (The Spinster Club, #1)

by Holly Bourne

The groundbreaking and bestselling first Spinster Club novel from YA star Holly Bourne - "A brutal and brilliant takedown of how we talk about mental illness, feminism, and friendship." The Guardian

All Evie wants is to be normal. And now that she's almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the-girl-who-went-nuts, there's only one thing left to tick off her list...

But relationships can mess with anyone's head - something Evie's new friends Amber and Lottie know only too well. The trouble is, if Evie won't tell them her secrets, how can they stop her making a huge mistake?

Reviewed by brokentune on

3 of 5 stars

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It's YA and I got given the book by a friend who had copies for World Book Night 2016.

Otherwise, I would not have picked it up, because...YA.

If I had read this when I was 15, I would have enjoyed this much more, but as I haven't the book fell a bit flat for me.

The intention of the book is great, tho: To give readers an insight into how OCD and general anxiety disorder can affect people. It's not something that I as a 15-year-old would have been that familiar with, other than by way of crude jokes. And this is the point of the book - to get people think about the jokes and flippant remarks that are based on mental health issues.

From that aspect, I really appreciated the book, too.

Where it fell flat for me was in the writing - it was so full of cliches that made it seem quite ironic that the books attempts to look behind the common misconceptions - and cliches - surrounding mental health issues.

And of course the precocious little sister character, just seemed a thinly veiled psychology lecture...

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  • Started reading
  • 1 March, 2017: Finished reading
  • 1 March, 2017: Reviewed
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