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ellaroshea 's review for:
Am I Normal Yet?
by Holly Bourne
*2.5 stars
I like a lot about this book and also dislike a lot about it. I will break it down:
like: this book really portrays just how exhausting ocd can be and that it is not a fun quirk or something desirable, as mainstream media and colloquial speech might have you think. it shows how difficult recovery can be and all the emotions that come around recovering and having flares, as well as the impacts that mental health conditions can have on your wider life and the lives of those around you, which we see informs evie's actions throughout the book. I was also pleasantly surprised that there is nuanced discussion of the fact that the issue is not that people with ocd deviate from a neuronorm and therefore need treatment to become 'normal', but that untreated ocd often means people have an extremely low quality of life, when they deserve to be able to do the things that matter to them. there was a bit when sarah, evie's therapist, talked about the fact that for ocd to be diagnosed it has to be ego-dystonic and distressing, but if she was doing the exact same thing but enjoying it and it wasn't impeding her life, it wouldn't be an issue, which was pleasantly neurodiversity-affirming for 2010s literature. I was shocked at how powerful some of the sections are in terms of describing the internal experience of ocd. I think that it is really authentic and honest representation that I would happily give anyone wanting to look at this experience from an internal perspective.
dislike: I had issues with the tone of this book around struggling with ocd. I think the title of the book sums it up very well in that evie's attitudes are so painfully infused with neuronormativity and just how much this hurts her life, perhaps almost even more than her ocd itself does. firstly, I just got kind of tired of evie constantly calling herself 'insane' and 'crazy' and 'mad' in a very negative way -- I know this is internalised sanism and I feel so sorry she feels that way about herself, but it felt difficult to read that she was feeling so bad about the fact that she has ocd. sadly though this did tip over into how she viewed oli in particular, and I was sometimes quite surprised at her lack of understanding given that he struggles with EXACTLY the same things she's struggled with. the narrative of the book is framed around relapse and I know that the attitudes of shame and failure around relapse also reflect evie's own feelings because of how the people around her have reacted to her ocd, but I really absorbed this sentiment that struggling = bad when I read it as a younger teen for the first time. I just wish sarah had said to evie once that it is possible to have a fulfilling life with ocd and that just because ocd isn't curable and intrusive thoughts will continue to pop up, it is very possible that you can coexist pretty much entirely peacefully with these thoughts with practice and good therapy and live a very full life (like daisy's speech at the end of turtles all the way down). I also really hated how the one exposure that was detailed in the book went; there was no pre-warning, no graded choice of exposure and no consensual involvement of evie in the process of devising it which, understandably, led to quite a traumatic experience of a scene. I would like to highlight to anyone reading this that exposure and response prevention, while difficult by its very nature, can be very manageable and empowering if it involves consent, graded exposure and autonomy of the person undergoing it, which this did not. I think a lot of the reason as to why evie struggled in recovery was because of this lack of autonomy and the fact that she was expected to drop a lot of compulsions (though at one point it does mention that she had some leniency at reducing/altering compulsions instead of eliminating them at the start of recovery, which is really good). this very strict attitude has, in my experience, led to a lot of the shame and lack of self-compassion evie experiences in the book. anyone would struggle if they experienced ocd and we need to acknowledge that we're all just trying to get by, simply trying to choose helpful ways to respond in our lives (which is what recovery is). apart from the ocd rep, I just really struggled with a lot of the other parts of the book. the feminism part is very early-2010s and the characters have a long way to go in terms of dealing with internalised misogyny (pretty much all their feminist meetings devolved into talking about the boys in their lives which I found a bit tiring, and they also keep tearing down other girls, particularly jane). I found a lot of things in the book kind of hard to swallow, like the fact that one character has to assure people she's not a lesbian (even though she does admit that it's not a bad thing, but the fact she says it still confused me), a casual use of a slur at one point, very cisnormative feminism, casual fatphobia, slightly weird vibes about ethan and evie's ongoing 'which disorder should I not get' shebang and also the vibe I somewhat got that all boys were kind of seen as inherently problematic by their essential nature (and while patriarchy does exist and affects people's behaviour, cis boys aren't bound to be horrible because they are just built that way by their body -- that's very limiting and underestimates their ability to be nice, normal humans if taught correctly!). I didn't really like a lot of the characters though -- bar rose, who is a gem, but probably a little too perfect to be a genuine tween and also very painful to read from a glass child point of view. I would also add to any teens reading this that weekly parties, sex, dating, gigs, drugs and drinking are not necessarily a very common, 'normal' teenage experience and you don't need to participate in them to be a happy and normal teen (of course you can, with safety measures in place, but how it's portrayed in the book is nowhere near necessary or typical of most teens' experiences).
overall would not read this were it not for the ocd rep, which redeems the book in my eyes. it's very interesting to think about and very classic 2010s ya mental health fiction, so I reckon it did a lot for its time in introducing teens to mental health conditions and feminism, but with the very rapid rate our understanding of these two things is shifting, I think we've slightly moved past where this book is at exploring these two things. to be enjoyed in context for sure.
I like a lot about this book and also dislike a lot about it. I will break it down:
like: this book really portrays just how exhausting ocd can be and that it is not a fun quirk or something desirable, as mainstream media and colloquial speech might have you think. it shows how difficult recovery can be and all the emotions that come around recovering and having flares, as well as the impacts that mental health conditions can have on your wider life and the lives of those around you, which we see informs evie's actions throughout the book. I was also pleasantly surprised that there is nuanced discussion of the fact that the issue is not that people with ocd deviate from a neuronorm and therefore need treatment to become 'normal', but that untreated ocd often means people have an extremely low quality of life, when they deserve to be able to do the things that matter to them. there was a bit when sarah, evie's therapist, talked about the fact that for ocd to be diagnosed it has to be ego-dystonic and distressing, but if she was doing the exact same thing but enjoying it and it wasn't impeding her life, it wouldn't be an issue, which was pleasantly neurodiversity-affirming for 2010s literature. I was shocked at how powerful some of the sections are in terms of describing the internal experience of ocd. I think that it is really authentic and honest representation that I would happily give anyone wanting to look at this experience from an internal perspective.
dislike: I had issues with the tone of this book around struggling with ocd. I think the title of the book sums it up very well in that evie's attitudes are so painfully infused with neuronormativity and just how much this hurts her life, perhaps almost even more than her ocd itself does. firstly, I just got kind of tired of evie constantly calling herself 'insane' and 'crazy' and 'mad' in a very negative way -- I know this is internalised sanism and I feel so sorry she feels that way about herself, but it felt difficult to read that she was feeling so bad about the fact that she has ocd. sadly though this did tip over into how she viewed oli in particular, and I was sometimes quite surprised at her lack of understanding given that he struggles with EXACTLY the same things she's struggled with. the narrative of the book is framed around relapse and I know that the attitudes of shame and failure around relapse also reflect evie's own feelings because of how the people around her have reacted to her ocd, but I really absorbed this sentiment that struggling = bad when I read it as a younger teen for the first time. I just wish sarah had said to evie once that it is possible to have a fulfilling life with ocd and that just because ocd isn't curable and intrusive thoughts will continue to pop up, it is very possible that you can coexist pretty much entirely peacefully with these thoughts with practice and good therapy and live a very full life (like daisy's speech at the end of turtles all the way down). I also really hated how the one exposure that was detailed in the book went; there was no pre-warning, no graded choice of exposure and no consensual involvement of evie in the process of devising it which, understandably, led to quite a traumatic experience of a scene. I would like to highlight to anyone reading this that exposure and response prevention, while difficult by its very nature, can be very manageable and empowering if it involves consent, graded exposure and autonomy of the person undergoing it, which this did not. I think a lot of the reason as to why evie struggled in recovery was because of this lack of autonomy and the fact that she was expected to drop a lot of compulsions (though at one point it does mention that she had some leniency at reducing/altering compulsions instead of eliminating them at the start of recovery, which is really good). this very strict attitude has, in my experience, led to a lot of the shame and lack of self-compassion evie experiences in the book. anyone would struggle if they experienced ocd and we need to acknowledge that we're all just trying to get by, simply trying to choose helpful ways to respond in our lives (which is what recovery is). apart from the ocd rep, I just really struggled with a lot of the other parts of the book. the feminism part is very early-2010s and the characters have a long way to go in terms of dealing with internalised misogyny (pretty much all their feminist meetings devolved into talking about the boys in their lives which I found a bit tiring, and they also keep tearing down other girls, particularly jane). I found a lot of things in the book kind of hard to swallow, like the fact that one character has to assure people she's not a lesbian (even though she does admit that it's not a bad thing, but the fact she says it still confused me), a casual use of a slur at one point, very cisnormative feminism, casual fatphobia, slightly weird vibes about ethan and evie's ongoing 'which disorder should I not get' shebang and also the vibe I somewhat got that all boys were kind of seen as inherently problematic by their essential nature (and while patriarchy does exist and affects people's behaviour, cis boys aren't bound to be horrible because they are just built that way by their body -- that's very limiting and underestimates their ability to be nice, normal humans if taught correctly!). I didn't really like a lot of the characters though -- bar rose, who is a gem, but probably a little too perfect to be a genuine tween and also very painful to read from a glass child point of view. I would also add to any teens reading this that weekly parties, sex, dating, gigs, drugs and drinking are not necessarily a very common, 'normal' teenage experience and you don't need to participate in them to be a happy and normal teen (of course you can, with safety measures in place, but how it's portrayed in the book is nowhere near necessary or typical of most teens' experiences).
overall would not read this were it not for the ocd rep, which redeems the book in my eyes. it's very interesting to think about and very classic 2010s ya mental health fiction, so I reckon it did a lot for its time in introducing teens to mental health conditions and feminism, but with the very rapid rate our understanding of these two things is shifting, I think we've slightly moved past where this book is at exploring these two things. to be enjoyed in context for sure.