Rating: 5/5

“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… There is no normal, Evelyn.” 

For Evelyn, all she’s ever wanted to be was normal. That’s what she hopes will happen as she starts a new college while adjusting to life off her meds. She wants to start over, make new friends, and have stability and not be seen as the girl who went crazy. But, life doesn’t always work out that way as relationships are messy and what you think will make you happy doesn’t always happen in the way that you want. Evie begins to see that being normal isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be and embracing the messy side of life and stepping into who you are is a terrifying yet rewarding experience all in one.

It’s very rare for me to give a book a five star rating but this book totally went beyond my expectations and even though I may overreacting when calling this one of the best ya contemporaries I’ve read, it’s absolutely true. I laughed, cried, cheered, and went through a rollercoaster of emotions and enjoyed every minute of it. I found the mental health rep particular fantastic as some ya books can be hit and miss with mental health rep. But, I thought the way mental health was portrayed in the book was really well. The story was interesting but it was really the characters who were well-written and interesting in their own way. Evie is definitely someone that I really resonated with in particular her struggles with her mental health but I felt like she was very well. The dynamics throughout the book also added to the individual characters and it helped with the story. I am excited to read the next book and hopefully I’ll enjoy it as much as I did this one.