A sweet tale and an enjoyable read, but I personally don’t like it when we’re kept in the dark about one of our leading characters until the final pages....feels like a lie. I’d rather know and be able to understand and empathise. Personal preference.

When I was given the chance to read and review this novel for netgalley, I did presume it was going to be a normal romance novel - girl meets boy and fall in love ect. However, I was pleasantly surprised as this story was much more than that.
It follows Effie's personal journey from being an unpleasant spikey character as she becomes a person who learns to love herself and to live life without holding grudges. It also follows her friendship/romance with Theo who has a secret.
I would highly recommend this book & have given it 5 stars.

This is a contemporary fiction set in Birmingham, England.

It is written in the first person and focuses on Matilda Effie Heaton. A 28 year old who despite being a graduate lives with her parents and considers herself being a failure in comparison to her friends especially best friend Kate.

She prefers to be called Effie as she didn't like being compared to 'Matilda' and is on the verge of being an alcoholic.

Unexpectedly Effie meets Theo, a charismatic handsome stranger who helps her and they begin a relationship. However, Theo has his own secrets that complicates their relationship.

I liked how the story was written in the first person so you understand what the character is going through and it sounds more like a diary entry. I also liked the setting of Birmingham, England and how references were made to degrees, Jobseekers Allowance as well as living with parents, which are things I can relate to. The main thing I didn't like was I felt the character kept moaning about her misfortunes. I like to be more optimistic. Also the alcohol consumption part of the story was too detailed for my liking.

Matilda ‘Effie’ Heaton thinks her life is a failure. She's constantly comparing herself to her 'best friend' Kate, who has a successful career, fancy apartment, and a gorgeous fiancée. Meanwhile, Effie is still living at home and spends most evenings drinking herself into oblivion. The only thing she loves is her job at a bookshop.

Then she meets Theo, and her luck finally seems to be changing. Because Theo has a life-changing secret and knows how important it is not to take life for granted.

Can Effie fall in love instead of falling apart?

I wasn't sure what to think of this book in the beginning. Effie isn't the easiest character to like, and her constant self-deprecation started to get on my nerves. Then she met Theo and I was worried this would turn into one of those stories about a girl who only manages to pull herself together because of a guy.

However, as their relationship progressed, I soon started to soften towards Effie, especially in the second half of the book. I liked seeing how she changed and grew. Birmingham is my local city and I loved that there were references to places I know.

I debated between giving this 3 or 4 stars, but I did enjoy it overall and would recommend it.

A lovely story about Efffie. She is very down on herself, she is unhappy that things never seem to go to plan for her. Everyone else seems to have life sorted. Her best friend has a fantastic job, life, job and is getting married. Effie's life as she puts it is ‘meh.’

One evening she has an awful date. The man sitting on the next table overhears. In her hurry to leave, her purse gets left behind. The waitress having seen her talking to him thinking he knows Effie. He tracks her down and the next morning Theo wanders into her life...

This was a heartwarming well written story, a really enjoyable read.

Effie is angry at the world, her parents, her job and old friend. Why had life not followed the plan in her head. It had ground her down till her anger and expectations were so low. Then a chance meeting brings Theo in to her life, he won't give up on her. Effie finally let's him in and open up to a future but.
This is where I found the book being pushed away, ignored for a number of months. Effie found she could cope alone and succeed, revisited old dreams and following them up. The twist at the end left me undecided. Well written and compulsive but for me I wanted a different ending.

A lovely, well written enchanting tale about love, about, family, about friendships, about relationships, about social awkwardness, about not filling in,, about failure, about achieving your dreams, about jealousy, about self acceptanc. A love story

Very Nearly Normal is the story of Effie, a young woman who really doesn’t like herself. Everyone she knows seems to have their lives together but Effie’s way of getting through life is to drink. When Theo enters Effie’s life she is on a downward spiral and with his help and encouragement she begins to see a light at the end of the tunnel. But Theo hasn’t been completely honest with Effie, and when she discovers his secret, how will she cope with his deception?

A great first novel by this author, I look forward to the next one.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

Very unusual love story with a surprisingly happy ending. Not sure I particularly like the characters. Didn’t feel like the ending gave me any emotional payoff. The heroine’s initials are MEH and it seems a bit one the nose. 2.5 rounded up

Thank you so much NetGalley for an advance copy of Very Nearly Normal in exchange for my honest opinion.

I loved how this book started! I could not stop reading it! I was so very looking forward to knowing how the book continued and what had the future prepared for Effie.

At the beginning, I could relate a lot to Effie, the main character. Her way of narrating her life, her failures and how she is feeling about it all was so raw, so real, so true, so authentic, so sad that I liked her straight away and wanted to be part of her life in this adventure that is her book.

I understood most of her struggles like meeting people and making friends, I get how difficult it's! The older you get, the harder and awkward it becomes and I appreciated her efforts for trying.

I found the writing style quite addictive due to how easy it is to read. I had no problems with the vocabulary, the lenght of the chapters was more than okay and I enjoyed the way things were told.

I suffered a bit about Effie's relationship with Theo. Unfortunately, alcohol plays a very important role in the story and I found it overwhelming in a couple of scenes because I thought they became a bit over the top and hard to believe.

I didn't especially liked the fact that Effie seemed to be a mess without Theo and he was described as some sort of hero that came to her life in the right moment to save her from going downhills.

I also didn't enjoy Effie's negativity about everything. I got that her life wasn't the dreamt one and there were aspects that she could improve in but, in general, I thought she was just complaining without much reason.

I didn't like reading how she talked about her parents, especially her mum. Living with them when you are a 28 y/o must be difficult and irritating and annoying but for the first half of the book, Effie didn't have a single nice word about her parents. At all.

In my opinion, the last third of the book was way too cheesy and convenient. We all knew how the book was going to end but I just didn't enjoy the process.

This book started very well off but it didn't do anything for me and I can't give it more than 2/5⭐

I requested this book based purely on it’s cover. I knew nothing about the book or the author but this as definitely a good read and a good judgement of a book by it’s cover.

It had some good humour throughout and kept me engaged through the one sitting it took to read.

When I started this book I was unsure of what I was going to find. Is it a love story or is it about friendship? Effie is the main character along with the lovely Theo. From the beginning Effie to be honest was quite annoying... But this was because she reminded me of me. She wasn't happy with herself and things always seemed to go wrong in her life. A date went disastrously wrong but with a word from a stranger this seemed to change her entire life.
Effie reminded me of Eleanor Oliphant (if you have read that book) her character seems to be in turmoil. Theo on the other hand seems to be the perfect man. Good looking, adorable and wants Effie. The story takes you on a long but wonderful journey through the ups and downs of Effies life and brings Theo in and out of it too.
I glorious read and will definitely look for more from this author.
Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book pre release for an honest review

Gorgeous book which I adored. Effie is a likeable, protagonist whose life hasn't worked out the way she hoped it would. She's also bristly - until she meets Theo, this is when she finds that slowly everything starts to change.
But Theo hides a secret which he doesn't want Effie to know about.
This book was so funny/humorous, I laughed out loud.
I found this book is full of heart, too.
It was compelling, entertaining, life-affirming, it's truly a book to lose yourself in. Highly recommend it.

Very impressive scene were Effie is overwhelmed when she sees the art work Beata Beatrix by Rossetti! How she takes it in and needs to get her bearings.

This book makes you think twice about what you take for granted, once you get passed its ghastly first chapter: if I got a pound for every time the f-word (failure, failing, etc.) was mentioned, I could've bought myself a whole stack of new books... not to mention the enormous amount of 2nd hand books.
I'm glad that around the third chapter the book was able to make me smile. So this couldn't possibly be my first paragraph of a review, or no one would care to read beyond those five words I started this paragraph with.

But of course, she has a point: don't we all feel like a failure from time to time? I know I do.

Lots of themes in this book, I am glad I finished it!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book.

When I started reading this book I found the lead character Effie, irritating in her bitterness, lack of self-esteem, rudeness and general all-round unpleasantness. However, it was obvious from the get-go that this was just to lay the ground-works for her to change as the book went on.

This book was actually really good, and I enjoyed following the journey of Effie and how she developed into a fully-rounded human albeit a flawed one.

That is in fact the beauty of all the characters - they are all flawed, as all humans are and this makes them more relateable. There were even a couple of points that I felt myself tearing up.

Effie in a young woman in her late twenties and is facing a number of problems. Chief among these is her love of wine and her complete lack of self-esteem. Boardering on actual dislike, Effie cannot see any redeeming features in herself but subjects herself to regular meetups with an ex-best friend, only to listen to tales of success which serve to highlight her inadequacies. Her relationship with her mother is also a disaster with each constantly trying to score points against the other and Effie's drinking adding to their contentions.
Yet, a turning point is just ahead, After a particularly unpleasant date, Theo meanders into Effie's life and decides to help her. He certainly has his job cut put for him and the reader is given plenty of reasons to be suspicious of his behaviour.
I loved this book. From their initial meeting, I quickly became a fan of Effie and Theo and rooted for them throughout the story.
This is not a typical girl meets boy and he fixes her story - and for that I am grateful.
There are sufficient funny moments and interactions with family and friends to help jog along the plotline so that we do not focus just on our main protagonists.
Ultimately, this is an uplifting story and one with plenty of heart. Read it and enjoy.
I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in return for an honest review.

What I particularly liked about Very Nearly Normal by Hannah Sunderland are the themes this book talks about. It’s got everything you want from a romance novel; engaging characters, love, and drama, but it also talks about topics which are a lot deeper. Effie is struggling. She’s in her late twenties, and still doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life. I think most people at some point in their lives have dealt with feeling lost, so this made this book a lot more relatable to me. This made Effie quite a difficult character at first – she’s flawed, but doesn’t yet want to admit her role in her failures. As the book progresses, Effie as a character begins to transform. Very Nearly Normal is as much a book about a self-journey as it is a romance, which I really liked.
I also really liked the other characters in the book – Theo, Arthur, Toby, and eventually Otis, all have a profound impact on Effie’s life, some for the better, and others not so much.
I loved the references to popular culture throughout the book, like Mean Girls and Game of Thrones, to name a few. I thought these added to the sense of humour of the book, especially because I love all the things Sunderland references.
The book was pacey, light-hearted and easy to read, and I flew through it. I thought it was really refreshing to read, so I would really recommend!
A big thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for providing me with an early copy of the book.

Favourite quotes:
“I’d always thought that films overplayed the whole broken heart thing, but now that I was feeling it for real, I knew that the films never did it justice.”
“I knew that my life was my own charge and if I didn’t like how it was going then I was the only one with the power to change it.”

I love books involving bookshops. I love characters who like books. I love love stories. This book was just perfect for me. It sucked me in right from the start and I just couldn’t put it down. The characters were so well developed and the plot so beautifully done- I fell in love with this book a little. I love, love loved it.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher Avon

Very Nearly normal is a good debut by Hannah Sunderland that I'm sure will become a summer hit. The characters are good as is the storyline.

Effie is an unlikely and quirky heroine: she’s down on herself, drinks too much and envies her friends. But when Theo pursues her, she gradually feels her guard starting to slip.
The first third of this novel felt like a lot like chick lit: she can’t stand him/ he’s got chiselled cheekbones and smells yummy etc etc.
But then it really lifted and I started to care about the characters and the plot took some unexpected and interesting turns.
Theo also challenges Effie to challenge herself: stop holding grudges, try something new etc etc and it’s all part of her finding herself.
In summary: this is a classic ‘girl hates boy but really loves boy’ novel, but it will grow on you and is a cut above the usual chick lit.