Normalish Blog Tour: Review & Giveaway!

Normalish

Margaret Lesh

Pages: 175

Publisher: Musa Publishing Euterpe Young Adult imprint

Format: ebook

Source: Xpresso Book Tours

Age Group: Young Adult

Publication Date: October 5, 2012

Fifteen-year-old Stacy questions the strange world of high school, love, her role in a harsh universe, and life, in Normalish.
People tell you high school's so great and wonderful, but they're lying. It's mostly horrible and full of disappointment. It sucks. Your best friend abandons you. The jerk you're in love with pretends to be into you, and then the big dump. The boy you've really clicked with as a friend decides to go all crushy over you, so you break his heart just like yours was -- smashed into little pieces. Your sister goes mental, and you get involved with a guy who’s even crazier than she is (who you know is a very bad idea, but you do it anyway). Math only adds another stink of failure to the whole thing.
High school blows. Just ask freshman Stacy. She’d want you to know.

This book was very cute. It took me a little while to quash my freshman prejudice (the majority of freshmen at my school make me want to hurt them), but after that I really liked it. It was cute, funny, sad, and a lot of other high school  things. It was a contemporary romance, and I don't always enjoy those, but it was fun. And a quick read, too!

So, Stacy is starting high school and her BFF Summer ditched her for the skanky popular girl crowd. Stacy's new BFF is a boy named Chad, and she hurts him so he's not her BFF any more. and there's a girl she calls horrible Vanessa. And Daria is in love with Coach Rob (she made me laugh out loud). The book is mainly about Stacy's relationships- the love interest kind. She was really kind of a goober. The majority of the book is spent with her flipping between boys she likes and wants to date and does date and how her family feels about it. There is a good bit about mental illness, though, and it's pretty well done. It's very predictable, but a fun read (I've said that a lot, but it's true!).

Soooo Stacy. She has poor boy choices and a crazy sister. She's sarcastic and she knows it (she says it herself a lot). She just seems to want 'the One' and looks everywhere for it. She gets pimples and there isn't much of a big deal made about her looks- and I liked that. I'm kind of getting sick of the perfect heroine with perfect skin who doesn't have to shower everyday. And Stacy so isn't that. She's a normal, hormone filled, teenage girl. She's immature and everything seems like a big deal to her, and she kind of reminded me of me two years ago (minus all the boys. no relationships were had my freshman year).

My favorite minor character was Roman- crazy sister's BF. He was kind of like Stacy's stand in dad. He never really said much, but he drives her places and is just so adorable. He was the one who opened the door when a boy came over to pick her up for a date and shook his hand. He was just awesome. And he stayed with crazy sister during her time in the psychiatric ward. Love him.

And Daria, who had a very minor role in the book, made me laugh out loud. She was all depressed because Coach Rob was getting married and she wrote him love letters and had a monobrow. I think it might be a little sick of me to have liked her so much. But I did.

In the beginning of the book, I had a little bit of an issue with the fact that we really knew nothing about Stacy's friends or how she knew them or how long or whatever. It took me a while to figure out who Bethany and Rose were. And in the first few chapters I was all Who the heck is Chad? Or Summer? But, it turned out okay, and backstories were revealed some. I also had a teensy issue with how quickly Stacy fell for guys, but that might have just been me.

Overall the book was very cute and a fun read. If you're into the freshman romance scene with sarcastic quirky heroines, then this book is for you. I just had a few issues with the beginning and Stacy's habit of falling for any guy with a nice smile.

Buy: Amazon | Musa Publishing

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California girl Margaret Lesh lives with her husband Steve and son Andrew in a quiet suburb near Los Angeles. Co-creator of StoryRhyme.com, she writes middle grade, young adult, and women’s fiction. When she’s not writing, she’s thinking about baked goods, especially donuts, far too often. She believes tacos are magic.  Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter