Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Review of How to be a Normal Person by T.J. Klune



5 stars


Gustavo Tiberius is not normal. He knows this. Everyone in his small town of Abby, Oregon, knows this. He reads encyclopedias every night before bed. He has a pet ferret called Harry S. Truman. He owns a video rental store that no one goes to. His closest friends are a lady named Lottie with drag queen hair and a trio of elderly Vespa riders known as the We Three Queens.

Gus is not normal. And he's fine with that. All he wants is to be left alone.

Until Casey, an asexual stoner hipster and the newest employee at Lottie’s Lattes, enters his life. For some reason, Casey thinks Gus is the greatest thing ever. And maybe Gus is starting to think the same thing about Casey, even if Casey is obsessive about Instagramming his food.

But Gus isn’t normal and Casey deserves someone who can be. Suddenly wanting to be that someone, Gus steps out of his comfort zone and plans to become the most normal person ever.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

We have a special place in our heart for anything TJ Klune – stories that are magical, whimsical and quirky and unusual.  How to Be a Normal person is a playful story of peculiar people and how easy it is to fall in love, and fall in love we did!

The good:
-          - The characters:  Amazing.  TJ Klune creates exceptional characters, rare characters that don’t seem to be real, but jump off the page and make us fall in love.  From Gustavo and Casey, to the friends in town, they are all one-of a-kind characters!
-          - Slow Burn:  Gosh, we love a slow burn romance, and How to be a Normal person has it is spades.  The romance is lovely, there is an ease from friendship, affection, excitement and love that is so sweet.  This is not a rip each other clothes off romance and slow-burn seems so authentic for Gus and Casey.
-          - Sexual Spectrum:  Not many books have asexual main characters and although we were a bit hesitant about how this would work for a romance, it added so much.  And honestly, it opened our mind up to a different kind of non-traditional romance and how one view of love isn’t always everyone’s view of love. 
-          The feels:  So so so many feels.  So many heart aching moments.

The meh?
-          - The quirky:  I think you have to be in the right mood to love this book.  It isn’t for everyone.  It is sweet, shy, eccentric, and unconventional; all things that make it great could leave you scratching your head.
-          The internet advice: Gus, being left of normal, googles” how to be a normal person”, and although fun we kind of got tired of the internet advice.  By the 6th internet advice section we skimmed a bit *hides head in shame*.  We missed Gus and Casey and just really wanted to get back to their interaction.

If you are looking for an unusual love story, filled with peculiar people How to be a Normal Person is a must read.  We couldn’t get enough Gus and Casey, so we bought the audiobook!  Off to fall in love all over again.

No comments:

Post a Comment