Review: Normalish redifines Normal
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2012
Fifteen-year-old Stacy questions the strange world of high school, love, her role in a harsh universe, and life, in Normalish.People tell you high school's so great and wonderful, but they're lying. It's mostly horrible and full of disappointment. It sucks. Your best friend abandons you. The jerk you're in love with pretends to be into you, and then the big dump. The boy you've really clicked with as a friend decides to go all crushy over you, so you break his heart just like yours was -- smashed into little pieces. Your sister goes mental, and you get involved with a guy who's even crazier than she is (who you know is a very bad idea, but you do it anyway). Math only adds another stink of failure to the whole thing.High school blows. Just ask freshman Stacy. She'd want you to know.My Review:I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.Normalish is a story about fifteen-year-old Stacy and her not so normal life. Honestly her life is one of those lives where when you hear about it you're happy it's not yours. Stacy starts out talking about all the things that make her sad in a little mental inventory, she makes them throughout the book.Stacy goes through a lot of high school angst and it really sucks. Her best friend has left her behind for a new social crowd. Her new best friend is now crushing on her and while she wants to like him she can't, leaving their friendship on the fritz. She ends up making out with her crush and then he breaks her heart. Her sister goes off the deep, and then Stacy starts acting strange herself. Add school and puberty along for the ride and you get Normalish.During the book Stacy's sister Becca has a mental breakdown in the middle of the school cafeteria and is taken to the mental hospital where she learns to cope and get better. While Stacy is visiting her sister she meets a boy named Bobby. Stacy and Bobby has an instant connection even though Bobby is 18 and in the psych ward. Bobby and Stacy become extremely close until the fates have their way leaving everyone including readers devastated.Stacy while she is a bit over the top and selfish sometimes is a very likeable character. She has momentous character growth over the coarse of the book which makes her even more likeable. I feel like even though sometimes while doing something during the book that she later regretted she always took it as a learning experience.Overall, this book will make your laugh, cry, and contemplate what 'normal' really is. Normalish is extremely well written with just the right amounts of inner dialogue, description and interactions with other characters. I have to say I found this whole story extremely relatable because of what happens to Stacy towards the end of the book, I found myself in a similar situation with the whole friend situation as well. Normalish I feel sums up the whole high school experience and how life and the world works pretty well.  If you have yet to pick up a copy of Normalish I highly suggest you do. It's awesome!!!Favorite Quote: This quote reminded me a lot of high school""Hey, guys. Meet my pimple. I'm thinking of naming it soon. I'm thinking of naming it Summer, as a matter of fact.""Oh, come on. it's nothing," Rose said, completely non-convincingly as she and Bethany looked at each other with eyebrows raised, like, "Whoa, did you see the size of Stacy's zit?""