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A review by blooker
The Other Normals by Ned Vizzini
2.0
Ned Vizzini's The Other Normals tells the story of Perry Eckert, a young math whiz whose divorced parents' lawyers agree that it would be cheaper to send him to summer camp than to feed him at home, and since he got kicked off the math team, there's no reason not to send him. Also, socializing with other kids at camp could be good for him--his parents and brother think he spends too much time alone creating characters and reading rulebooks for the role-playing game, Creatures & Caverns. It's sadder than your usual stereotype of a fantasy role-playing game geek because these games are intended to be played by more than one person.
Perry goes to camp and runs into a fantasy creature similar to ones he plays in C&C who takes him to the world of the Other Normals--an alternate dimension version of earth that's still very closely tied to Perry's earth. He has adventures there, crosses back over to camp, goes back to the other normals, back to camp, adventures left and right, with Vizzini's humor injected throughout.
It's a fun, light fantasy x coming of age story. I'll acknowledge that I'm not a young adult, and that perhaps that's why I found the story to be less satisfying. The humor was occasionally too similar to an Adam Sandler movie for my taste. You do have to suspend belief for a magical conduit to another dimension that involves mushrooms and a car battery, but even so Perry sometimes behaves in an over the top manner that's forehead-slappingly unbelievable (SPOILER: a scene in which Perry's love interest at camp accuses him of being a boy, not a man, involves him dropping his pants in front everyone at the camp dance). If that sounds like the sort of thing that makes you chuckle, and you enjoy adventure and fantasy world building, visit The Other Normals for yourself.
Perry goes to camp and runs into a fantasy creature similar to ones he plays in C&C who takes him to the world of the Other Normals--an alternate dimension version of earth that's still very closely tied to Perry's earth. He has adventures there, crosses back over to camp, goes back to the other normals, back to camp, adventures left and right, with Vizzini's humor injected throughout.
It's a fun, light fantasy x coming of age story. I'll acknowledge that I'm not a young adult, and that perhaps that's why I found the story to be less satisfying. The humor was occasionally too similar to an Adam Sandler movie for my taste. You do have to suspend belief for a magical conduit to another dimension that involves mushrooms and a car battery, but even so Perry sometimes behaves in an over the top manner that's forehead-slappingly unbelievable (SPOILER: a scene in which Perry's love interest at camp accuses him of being a boy, not a man, involves him dropping his pants in front everyone at the camp dance). If that sounds like the sort of thing that makes you chuckle, and you enjoy adventure and fantasy world building, visit The Other Normals for yourself.