content warnings: misogyny, ableism, intrusive thoughts, self-harm
representation: main character with OCD and GAD


“Mental illnesses grab you by the leg, screaming, and chow you down whole.They make you selfish. They make you irrational. They make you irrational. They make you self-absorbed. They make you needy. They make you cancel plans last minute. They make you not very fun to spend time with. They make you exhausting to be near.”


This book was fine. It wasn't anything too special, but wasn't anything horrible either.

Am I Normal Yet? follows Evie during her first year of college. She's determined to have a new start after being known almost exclusively for her breakdown in secondary school.

The biggest praise I can give this book is its depiction of OCD. While I don't have it myself, I do have GAD and I've seen many other reviewers with OCD praise this book. Evie's mental illness is a big part of her life because of how much it impacts her day-to-day activities but at the same time the book makes sure that you know her OCD isn't her entire life. I also loved the emphasis that while recovery is incredibly important, relapse is never failure.

This is a book about feminism and its unapologetic about that, but personally I would recommend this as more of an introduction to feminism. AINY? has lots of explanation of feminist concepts due to Evie being largely uneducated on them, such as what the Bechdel Test is, and a lot of discussions of big issues that feminism is trying to tackles, such as the reclaiming of sexist slurs and the stigma surrounding menstruation.

But while this book would be a really good first look at feminism, the feminism it presents is still seriously flawed. The book comes across very white feminist-y due to Evie, Lottie and Amber all being allocishet white girls. This is especially obvious when they're discussing periods and completely fail to mention trans/non-binary people.

This book was okay, but I don't think I'm going to read the other two books.