Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

This is a stunner. It’s raw and ragged. The narrative is relentless. It bursts with emotion – repressed and released. And it is impossible to stop reading. 

It’s a memoir about a childhood starved of love and affection and of not even being wanted, even though that child was adopted. Of being locked on the front step all night. Or in the coal hole. Of growing up in a house with no books. Of having a mother who seemed to spend her life longing for the end of it. And who once uttered the comment that gives the book its title.

It's also a book about looking for love, of trying to understand it, to let it in. It’s a book about fighting for a life the writer wants. And not the one her adoptive mother wants for her; the one she understands, the one where everything is locked away and the only expression of any interest in the outside world is the collection of Royal Albert china in the cabinet in the front room.

I hope I’ve done justice to it here. I read it so quickly because I couldn’t stop, dragged along by the life – good and bad and desperate and happy – bursting from the pages. I know I really need to go back and read it again to take it all in, but I also know – even though we’re not even done with January – that it’s going to stay one of the best books I’ve read all year.