Jeanette Winterson

This memoir is a tough-minded search for belonging, for love, an identity, a home, and a mother by the author of "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit"--winner of the Whitbread First Novel award and the inspiration behind the award-winning BBC television adaptation "Oranges."

Why be Happy when You Could be Normal?

biddy

In fact, there are more than two chances—many more. I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.

Uyirmei

She hated being a nobody, and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents we don't really have any choice.

katie burke

overall quite lovely but bordering on cringe

farah farooq

I loved reading this book, it was very touching and her way of writing, honest and vulnerable sometimes gave me shivers. This was a great story, sounded like a confession of a woman with an extreme need and desire to discover herself. And she did. Loved it. 

Nina Alexandra Bacrau

A New York Times bestseller: The “magnificent” memoir by one of the bravest and most original writers of our time—“A tour de force of literature and love” (Vogue). Jeanette Winterson’s bold and revelatory novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. Her internationally best-selling debut, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, tells the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents, and has become a staple of required reading in contemporary fiction classes. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a “singular and electric” memoir about a life’s work to find happiness (The New York Times). It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in a north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the universe as a cosmic dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past, rose to haunt the author later in life, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also a book about the power of literature, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, or a life raft that supports us when we are sinking. Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded story of the search for belonging—for love, identity, home, and a mother.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Tilde C

I was worried I wouldn't get much out of this book because I hadn't read Winterson's early work Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (everybody seems to bring it up in relation to this autobiography) but the truth is I haven't devoured a book in this way in years. It's about religion and self-discovery and literature and feminism, it's absurd and complex and grimly funny and often quite chilling. At one point Winterson complains that there's a stigma that women autiobiographers can only write about things as they've happened while men write about the bigger universal issues -- well Winterson's observations and beautiful way with language took my breath away again and again. I've NEVER underlined this much in any one book, and I'm sure I'll revisit this many times throughout my life.

kate humphreys 

as always with this magnificently talented woman: groundbreaking, heartbreaking, and beautiful.

Irene Alegre

I haven't read any of JW's novels, so this counts as my introduction to her world; I loved her memoir. 

It's genuine, it's raw, and at the same time it's witty, funny and unapologetic. JW turns Mrs Winterson into a character, making her sound rather fictional (but then again, many times reality exceeds fiction). 

It's not too long, nor too short. It's moving, and satisfying. It's everything I expected from it – no more, nor less.

heartbreaking AND very funny memoir, beautifully written. her childhood dream of becoming a writer (in spite of her goddawful family) is so vividly told.

Sabine Delorme

Es gibt Bücher, die gehen so nah ran, da finde ich es unglaublich schwer, eine Rezension zu schreiben. Vielleicht habe ich daher so lange gewartet, bis ich mich an Jeanette Wintersons “Why be happy when you could be normal” herantraute. Es ist die Geschichte hinter ihrem Erfolgsroman “Oranges are not the only fruit”, der Mitte der 80er Jahre erschien und ein riesiger Erfolg war. Es ist die analytischere Fortsetzung des semi-autobiographischen “Oranges”.

Die komplette Review findet ihr hier: http://bingereader.org/2014/11/08/why...

Astha Prakash

Such a raw, honest, well-written book. There's a part where Jeanette says that even we think logically or make the seemingly "neutral" or "rational" decisions in life, we're also experiencing emotions. “To tell someone not to be emotional is to tell them to be dead.” I couldn't agree more. Also enjoyed how her sentences flowed from one to the other, gathering momentum as they went along, and then ending with a sudden dramatic lingering goodbye.

Why be Happy when You Could be Normal?

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