MAY YABOTM: Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne | review

Hi Everyone!

Can anyone believe it is now May? I certainly can't! May is my birthday month, and we have a lovely bank holiday Monday, when my village has a street fair! Anyway, here is my review for this month's YA Book Of The Month: Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne. 

Gosh, with school and holiday and everything, it's been about a month since I've written a book review. A whole month. I feel like I've forgotten how to do this, and I'm not just saying that - I honestly do! I'll start with a synopsis for a nice safe start and then descend into thoughts and opinions. I'll be fine.

Synopsis:

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?

I mean of course I loved it, otherwise I would not have included it in YA Book Of The Month! This was just so relatable, and something I really appreciated was how the representation of OCD felt realistic but remained sensitive and I thought really explored it well. It's such a complex thing and I felt this did a good job of showing different experiences and kept it very real for the reader. 

Evie was such an incredible character to follow. I loved her, I was rooting for her the whole way and I just completely fell in love with her. She's funny, interesting as a person and a character I would love to read more of. 

THE FEMINISM. It was not what I was expecting at all! It made so many great points and ideas and just made me want my own Spinster club! The ideas definitely got me thinking about society and the way we are taught to think and so much more. 

Photo taken with the view from our
holiday apartment in Spain!

I loved the ideas of "normal" and the realistic way in which it was portrayed. It felt so true to my experience as a teenager and that's something I really appreciate. Being "normal" is huge thing for modern day teenagers and social media definitely adds to that. 

I also enjoyed this more than The Manifesto On How To Be Interesting which I read earlier this year. This felt more personal and although I know I shouldn't judge a book on character likeablility, but Evie was one million times more likable than Bree and the topics approached spoke to me more. 

Read This For:

- Sisterly relationship - supportive and well - written. 

- Mental health rep (of course)

- Supportive healthy friendship group

- Amazing, eye opening feminism narrative.

Thank you so much for reading this post all about my YA Book Of The Month for May! I've been VERY busy with school recently so I haven't had much time to blog and currently have no posts written in advance! But it's okay and this weekend is bank holiday so I will hopefully have time to revise AND blog :).

I hope you are all staying well and I wish you all very happy reading!

Have you read Am I Normal Yet? Do you want to? How are you doing? What are you currently reading?

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p.s. casual magic of the day:

(If you are new here and have no idea what I'm on about, click here to find out more)

This probably sounds really small, but my geography teacher didn't set homework like I was expecting her to. This means I have much less homework this weekend and more time to blog. It was small but made me feel so much happier and less stressed! What's your casual magic for today?