So much is lost when you lose yourself. Not just your pride, or your hope. But worse things, things that affect others. Like your ability to help them when they need you, to notice when they’re hurting.

Evie is sixteen and desperately wants to be normal. She is almost off her medication and is finally making new friends at a college where no one knows her past. She is no longer known as the girl who went crazy. Having a boyfriend would be the final step in being a normal teenager, right?

Things I loved about the book; the insight into mental illness, treatment (both medication and counselling) and relapse. There were times when I felt like I was inside Evie’s mind as OCD and the related anxiety took hold.

The explorations of female friendships and the feminist discussion and strands throughout the novel were excellently done without ever feeling like a lecture. Yes, there are times when research is quoted but it feels like something that the characters would do rather than the author’s voice taking over.

“Everyone’s on the cliff edge of normal. Everyone finds life an utter nightmare sometimes, and there’s no ‘normal’ way of dealing with it.” Sarah sighed. “There is no normal, Evelyn. There’s only what’s normal to you. You’re chasing a ghost.”

Things I didn’t like about the book; my only fault with Am I Normal Yet? is that the initial discussion between Evie, Amber and Lottie about periods focuses on the idea periods are the only thing that make you a woman. In a novel so full of feminism, both in practice and in theory, the lack of awareness about the experiences of trans* people jarred with me.

Overall, Am I Normal Yet? is the kind of novel I wish I’d read when I was a teenager and I’m looking forward to the remainder of the trilogy.