Am I Normal Yet? By Holly Bourne

How can you live a ‘normal’ life when you have a mental illness? Evie is a normal teenager in loads of ways: she’s a feminist just starting college, and she wants to date, party and hang out with her friends. But there are some major things getting in the way of having what she would call a typical life: her severe anxiety and OCD are so disabling, that often she can’t leave the house. When the story starts, she’s easing off her meds, and it’s a bumpy ride. 

This book is about serious stuff, but somehow, it pulls off being absolutely hilarious without being insensitive. I couldn’t stop nodding my head on a lot of the points Evie makes about feminism and anxiety. Bourne has all her facts straight, and she addresses some of the problems with how society tends to talk about mental illness.

“Now mental health disorders have gone 'mainstream'. And for all the good it’s brought people like me who have been given therapy and stuff, there’s a lot of bad it’s brought too. Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks.

'Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I’m so OCD.'

NO YOU’RE F***** NOT!

'Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation. I literally had a panic attack.'

NO YOU F***** DIDN’T!”

If you’ve ever felt out of place, or not ‘normal’ in some way, you’ve got a friend in Evie. As she tells her sometimes painful story, I found it easier to accept some parts of myself I’d rather didn’t exist. 

This is the first in The Spinster Club trilogy, so if you like this one, check out the others. 

This is a book for anyone struggling with #mentalhealth #fittingin #OCD #anxiety 

Video review here