Thank you to NetGalley, Magdalena Newman and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was exactly what I needed this month! I was addicted right away, the writing is amazing and their story is so sad but also so amazing. I felt the positivity from this family right off the bat. This story really made me stop focusing on all the negative things that were happening in my life and delved right into the struggles of this family. This book was so inspiring for me because I realized how easy it is to fall into the negative when you should be looking at the small positives. I would highly recommend!

A big thank-you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for giving me a copy of this book for an unbiased review.

3/5 – Liked it

Writing a review for this book is difficult. Did I enjoy it? Until I got closer to the end, I can’t say that I did. This family’s experiences are so consistently brutal. Perhaps if this were fiction, it’d be easier to read. Perhaps if I could forget that Magda, her son, and her family are real people, it’d be less frustrating and heavy.

But that’s the whole point of the book. The Newmans weren’t given a life that was easy. This story is real, made up of real people with real problems. Heck, I got anxiety just from reading about their cross-country moves! And yet this is exactly what makes the book worth reading. Because, similar to Magda’s hidden worlds deep in the Polish woods, there are hidden worlds everywhere. It’s when we get too uncomfortable to explore them, too anxious to face them, too self-absorbed to acknowledge them, that we lose our compassion.

The story itself is important and I would recommend this book. However, I have a couple of reasons that it’s not rated even higher for me. The first is that I wanted so much to know more about Nathaniel. I had somewhat mistakenly expected this to be a story centered on his experience. This isn’t so much the case – the story, if anything, is Magda’s. It is written from her perspective, covers key aspects of her childhood, and reflects on the struggle of being a parent learning to come to terms with a world which may not always welcome her beautiful, uniquely normal boy. This isn’t a problem – in fact, Magda’s story also needs and deserves to be shared. However, the narrative did not line up with my expectations and I desperately wanted to hear more of Nathaniel’s own voice. I loved the excerpts written by him and wanted to see his story not just through a lens, albeit a very perceptive one, but through his own perspective. I’d have loved for the book to alternate between Magda’s and Nathaniel’s perspectives.

The second reason that my rating isn’t higher is due to the narration. Magda is a good writer, but the story felt unedited at times. The transitions between flashbacks and real time are confusing, some of the text is repetitive, and certain details could have been omitted. Sometimes this got in the way of the story.

This being said, the story shared in “Normal” is important and should be shared. I am appreciative of the opportunity to learn more about Treacher Collins and am confident that reading this book will change how I view the world and those in it.

Magdalena has had a hell of a life. And so has her son. This book chronicles not only his life but hers as well. This book takes you on a journey through surgeries, hospital stays, near death experiences, the fears of parents with disabled children, the resilience of disabled children, ableism, cancer, and so much more.

Magdalena is so real and raw in this book, it would be difficult to not feel exactly how she’s feeling. I laughed, I cried, I got angry, and I felt triumphant. This is not an easy book to read, probably even harder to write, but this is a must read book.

An amazing family a child born with a genetic disease.A family that has an amazing strength a sense of humor and the fortitude to handle whatever comes their way& there is sadly a lot.Really am in awe of them.#Netgalley#houghtonmifflinharcourt.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story of an amazing family. It is heart warming, funny, sad and inspiring.

Highly recommended.

Magda Newman is a remarkable woman, whose first son Nathaniel was born with Treacher Collins- a craniofacial genetic condition. This book chronicles the anguish, fear, love and joy experienced by their family. Nathaniel needs constant medical procedures and interventions to ensure he can breathe. Magda not only deals with this, but also two bouts of lymphoma. It is an inspiring read.

This is a great companion to Wonder. I liked the story of Nathanial and his family. I was very happy to hear they are all doing so well. I am hoping there will be pictures of the family in the book. Reading the eBook did not have any. I felt there was a lot of unnecessary jumping around in the timeline. Magda would be talking about present-day and then jump to when she and Russell had first met. I can sort of see it as a useful way to tell the story but it happened so much that it got annoying, in my opinion.

Overall though, I did enjoy the story.