I really enjoyed the storyline in world building in the novel. I also really liked the characters. I thought this was a solid read, and I will definitely be reading more by this author.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this review copy of Losing Normal by Francis Moss.

Losing Normal is a science fiction dystopian tale of a teenage boy on the autism spectrum (Jack) and his schoolmate (Sara) who are on the run after a company invents a computer program that starts changing the way people think and behave. With the help of an underground network of adults the two teens try to battle the computer and it’s invasive and overarching attempts to control the population.

This one reminded me a little of The Darkest Minds and dystopian and Sci Fi fans will enjoy this action driven plot. Although both main characters were likable and the author did a great job delving into Jack’s Aspberger’s and Sara’s teen angst I still needed a little more from the characters. I never felt pulled into the story or invested in their conflict.

I recommend this one for science fiction and dystopian fans of all ages. I give it a solid 3 stars.

You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Encelia Press, and the author via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Actual rating of 2.75

Alex knows how many steps exactly that it takes to walk from Mason Middle school to his home. He can tell you the specs of a car just by looking at it, and he knows the answers to his AP Math questions, generally before his teacher, all of this is normal. It is normal for his mother to have an Earl Grey tea when she gets home from work if she's had a stressful day, and it is normal for them to drive over the streets named after dead generals so that they can visit Alex's father at the veteran's hospital. What is not normal is that tech firm Calliope has begun a new exercise for those who are not quite normal, like Alex. TV screens are all over town, as big as billboards, and now there are even TV screens in his classroom. The things that come out of the TV screens are not normal, they hurt and they want to change Alex and the other special needs students, and so far, they are succeeding. The world as we know it is changing, Calliope's resident AI - Sophie, is out to change the world for the better, or so she thinks and it is up to Alex and his friends to save the day. Trying to make everyone the same, cut out the abnormal, cut out the differences, but the thing is, people aren't supposed to be the same, and honestly, what is normal, anyway?

I was pretty excited to read this book as the protagonist is a fifteen year old Autistic boy named Alex, to be more specific, he has Aspergers. He is not "normal" by general means, but he is an extraordinarily intelligent young man who can see that the world is going to hell, and he intends to do what he can, along with a bunch of other weks - as they call themselves (weird kids), and I thought the premise was absolutely brilliant. A world where tech is taking over and it's not for the better, when we look at the way the world is going today, the plot of the story honestly doesn't seem so far fetched. However, I felt like in the authors attempt to make the reader see what it's like in Alex's "not so normal" head, that it ended up coming across as a monotonous read, lacking any emotion.

Alex is a great character and I love that this book explored the brilliance of the autistic mind. People may look at someone who is autistic and claim they aren't as intelligent as they are, and I love that this was really pushed in this story. Our other protagonist is a girl called Sara who is in Alex's class because she has behavioral problems, she abuses prescription drugs, and she can teach you how to boost a car, but she has a bit of a temper on her. These two characters were well written but I won't lie, Sara annoyed me quite a bit, and I did find some of the knowledge that she had of certain things to be a little bit far fetched, but hey, who am I to judge, it could be a thing.

There were certain things in the story that seemed quite heavy for the story line itself, but yet, were delivered with such a lack of emotion or feeling that I didn't know what to make of it. I'm not sure if it was delivered this way in order to make it fit in with the targeted demographic of young young adult, pushing middle grade.

The narration, as said above, came across incredibly monotonous and at times a little bit boring, this in turn made the pacing not so great, for a book of under 300 pages, it took me over a week to finish it, this is not normal. Though in saying that, I was intrigued enough with the story to finish it, I won't lie, I did consider DNFing a couple of times, but I wanted to see how the story ended, even though I had an idea.

There is a part near the end when it's heading towards the big showdown between Alex and Sophie, that an observation in a certain room was made. What happened to this particular thing was alluded to, and I feel like it was up to the reader to come to their own conclusions, though I kind of wish it was explored a bit more because it felt like it was just brushed over when it could have been a fantastic revelation if I'm correct in my assumption.

In the end, this is a story about society trying to push for those who are a little left of center or who aren't considered normal by societal standards to become normal, to become like everyone else, and it follows those amazing people who fight back against adversity. I actually had a small epiphany while reading this book, I live with anxiety and depression, and the amount of times, during a panic attack or depression spiral that I have said the words "I just wish I was normal" is astounding, while reading this book I thought, you know what, I'm my own normal, just like Alex and Co. I don't want to be like anyone else because I like who I am, and I feel that my mental illness MAKES me who I am, just like Alex's autism makes him who he is. And upon realising that this book may have helped me instead of just being an entertaining read, I have actually bumped my rating up. I am in the minority with my rating, to which I'm happy about because I hate to see books fail and I wish that this story worked for me more than it did. But if I can walk away from this story realising that I'm fine just the way that I am, then I guess it's done something right.

I really loved this! The rep seemed very genuine and I loved the dystopian feel of it. The MC was three dimensional and was what made this book great to me. If you want a good dystopian check this one out!

The Quick Cut: An Aspie boy finds himself immune to technology that is quickly causing others to lose their memory and mind. Chaos ensues when he and others like him fight back.

A Real Review:
Thank you to Encelia Press for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Being an Aspie at moments can be a very defeating feeling. Although it comes with its litany of upsides, the common perception by many is that we're flawed or broken somehow. It doesn't take much time before that stance can rub off and start to impact your own self image. In this book, it's that different functioning brain which saves Alex and his friends from certain doom.

Calliope's televisions are appearing everywhere: from main streets to school rooms, they are bringing the sentient machine Sophie to everybody. Quickly, people are forgetting their lives and instead tuning into Sophie's every broadcast. Except they have run into an unexpected problem in the form of an Asperger's teen named Alex who seems capable of fighting Sophie's influence... and Sophie is sending all the Calliope agents she can to get him on track.

I'll be the first to admit this book has a hard core science fiction vibe that skews to the nearly unbelievable. However, the underlying story that this book speaks about really resonates in a way that makes the material work. Asperger's and being on the Autism spectrum can feel like a negative - especially with the way many people can give you that feeling. In this story, that is turned on its head and made a positive.

The attention to Aspie detail is very high. Alex counts steps everywhere, hates when people attempt to change his routine, and the only thing he hates more is when people touch him. All common traits for those of us in that population (personally, I prefer to count ceiling tiles).

Sophie as the evil sentient AI is a pretty amazing bad guy. Between the insane amount of people at her disposal and the unending need for love, it almost comes off as human in the way it chases after Alex and continuously desires to "fix" him to be like everybody else. There are so many points where you see the AIs craze speak too closely to how much we can go crazy trying to make others the way we want them to be.

Besides a few slow spots, this story centered around an Aspie boy tells an important tale about being happy with who you are.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5

This book made me think of Harrisson Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. The theme is the same. It's about dumbness considered the most normal state of mind and imposed by law because dumb citizens are more peaceful. Here, this is a computer called Sophie that sends waves that affect the brain and modify people's behavior. And this is not people who have the most atypical personalities who are the most dumb here. This is the contrary. And this is the MC, who suffers from Asperger syndrome who <spoiler> saves the world</spoiler>. I love it!

I have already read a book in which all pregnant women were tested and all fetuses whose genetic code was different from what was considered the "norm" were aborted. I hate this idea! Nature works by trial and error. Sometimes it seems to be the least adapted genetically speaking that ends up allowing a species, including the human species, to evolve and adapt to its also evolving environment. By destroying who and what is out of the ordinary, we could prevent the next stage of our evolution!

There are little weaknesses in this book like: why some people don't need the computer chips to be transform in some sort of zombies and the others, even with a computer chip, are able to stay relatively "normal" and <spoiler>even to control Sophie</spoiler>?

Anyway, the target readers are young adults. Maybe they won't have such technical questions. This is well written and interesting. The characters are well described and likable. There is a certain amount of humor. And the author knows well what Asperger syndrome is.

Thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an e-copy of this good book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-arc copy of Losing Normal.
I will say that this novel is very different. Losing Normal has a lead that is on the autism spectrum and he must save the world. I love that fact that the main hero is not your run of the mill lead. It gives children with disabilities and diverse backgrounds the feel of being their own hero. I would highly recommend to any teen.

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

Losing Normal by Francis Moss is relatively short, less than 300 pages, but do not let the length fool you into thinking it does not have a lot to say. There is a lot of action in this short book.

Alex, a highly-functioning autistic boy, likes things to stay the same. He knows how many steps it is from school to home and, to him, that is normal. He knows all the answers in math. That is normal. The strange giant television screens that are being put up all over are making him forget and that is not normal. Only the "defective" kids, those that are immune to the televisions, like Alex can save the world from becoming television watching zombies. What ensues is an interesting novel that shows how quickly technology could take over.

Losing Normal is not a post-apocalyptic novel. It shows the collapse of society by our rapidly advancing technology getting out of hand and beginning to think for itself.

This novel would be appropriate for those as young as middle school to read but it is an interesting story adults would enjoy too. I found it to be a quick, easy, enjoyable, and thought provoking read.

Review published on Philomathinphila.com, Smashbomb, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble on 3/14/19.

The story line could have been very predictable among other dystopian books. But it had some really clever aspects to it. The story follows Alex, a young man with Aspberger's Syndrome and his friends as they try to survive a world that wants to "fix" them. The incorporation of a boy like this as the main character provided a unique and fascinating journey for the reader. My objection was the writing and dialogue, which was supposed to be from Alex's perspective, came off as childish and cliched. Instead of sounding like a smart, different young man, it was a very shallow interpretation of what he might sound like by someone very unfamiliar with "Aspie" kids. The writing was so wrong, it was distracting to the great storyline. :(

This book is wonderful in the way it makes special needs characters seen without making them too over the top or without research.
Alex is on the autism spectrum and we see the story unfold through his eyes the most. As I sometimes work with children and teens on the spectrum I feel the author did a great job portraying the special way these kids think and make their world normal as best they can. Understanding and helping them isn't always easy and the other characters in the book are really and realistically doing well with that.

The way the A.I. Sophie was written was another great point! 'She' was not just sort of a being only seen through others pov but had her own voice, too.
I especially loved how towards the end something happened and we got two POV merged. The development in those moments was fantastic and I wish it was given some more pages.

Overall, I think Losing Normal is a great read for teens who are around people with autism. It gives a glimpse on the way their minds work and the daily struggles they go through, all while delivering it in a story of how we all lose our 'normal because of too much screen time and not enough finding adventures in different ways.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a chance to read this book.

Losing Normal keeps you guessing. The chapters switch between characters and nothing is truly normal. The videos are not safe! Sara and Alex try to fight back against “losing normal” for themselves and their families. #LosingNormal #NetGalley

I would give this book a 3.5. I work with kids on the spectrum so I think the author did a good representation of that. I liked the concept and some parts I couldn't put down. Towards the end I found myself skimming through, but overall I liked it. I would have liked more back story on the characters because they were kind of just thrown together and everything happened so quickly. The parts I found really interesting that I wish would have had more to it was the conversations from the computer. If you like stories about artificial intelligence learning to have a mind of its own this is a book I would suggest. Having individuals with special needs and mental illnesses as important characters was a cool interesting tip. I enjoyed the heroes being the people that are usually looked at as "not normal".

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have just put my Kindle down having finished this and actually said out loud "What a good book". Sadly the only other person in the room is my toddler who has spent a good portion of the last half hour emptying his Megablocks out of the Ikea drawer so he can unzip it and wear it like a costume. Still, I can add a review here and let it be known how good this is!

I expected something along the lines of Curious Incident or See You in the Cosmos with this one. Not to lump together stories like that while disregarding their wonderful stories you understand. However, this was more along the lines of dystopian fiction but very close to the real world at the same time.

Alex is on the autistic spectrum and as such we get information such as how many footsteps things take or how he eats the same food all the time or what he sees as 'normal'. He has to make things normal in order to accept them in his life - something I liked about his character - so he sees it as normal to be picked on in school by the usual bully type or when something new appears in his life he has to make it feel like it's always been there. One day his teacher brings in a TV screen to teach them their new curriculum; only for the TV to explode moments later after Alex sees black flies appearing from the screen. After a few mishaps like this in school, it seems Alex is going to be sent away from the mainstream and back to the 'special school' he attended. Before any of this can happen though it seems that the TV screens start to pop up everywhere and Calliope technologies are taking over. People start to forget memories, forget where they need to be or what they are doing with their lives and are trapped in front of screens.

Sound familiar?

While this sounds like a lecture on our dependence on technology, it's actually a very interesting look on how we can be so easily controlled by information and what we are told on screens. How we can believe what we are presented with and how easily people can be taken over by what they see. The strange manifestation of this technology, known as Sophie, wants everyone to love her and to listen to her. Alex is proving more of a challenge than everyone else, as are the friends he makes along the way.

While this book does contain its fair share of men in vans and people jumping out of nowhere to try and brainwash everyone into their way of thinking, it never takes over and never feels frustrating. There's nothing worse than rooting for your main character who seems to have the upper hand only for a van to appear from round the corner and take them away: lather, rinse, repeat. That doesn't happen thankfully.

The characters are great. Alex is full of information and in control of what he does. While he is ASD, this doesn't define him and only forms part of his character. I found this refreshing - there's more to him than just seeming to be the "weird kid". In fact, being the weird kid always seems to be to his advantage here. Sara is his friend and seems to actually adore Alex from the off - it's not something she falls into. She is totally on his side from the start and, while appearing the typical mouthy girl at times, is a really great character you find yourself cheering for at various points.

This book was a great read - an ARC I am really going to advocate. It was quite a shocking tale at times and also something that appears realistic as scary as that sounds. Calliope Technologies want to control everyone and they will not allow anyone to stop them - using whatever means necessary. It only takes a quick look around my room to see how many screens there are and how easy something like this could be!

Heartily recommended - I hope there is more of the same from this writer.