I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

It was annoyingly so much back and forth and i kind of disliked it.
At first i was confused, who was who? Why was this happening..
But it wasn`t keepign my interest much, and after 60% i started skimming, hoping my interest would catch up.
it did not.

Sort of Normal didn't work for me. The writing style just left me not caring about the characters. It was a DNF for me.

Told in alternating 1st person pov, alternating between the past and present, everything is slowly revealed.

It is a huge mess full of pain, hurt, and regret. It's a story of tradegy, loss, secrets, deception and betrayal.

These are two people who find love thru suffering.

Overall, it's too long, and I got bored

This one was different to other romance novels I read recently. It is not the typical high school romance. It is not the “good girl falls in love with the bad boy” type of romance. It is not cute and funny and romantic (even though there are a few sweet scenes). I am not meaning to talk negatively about this book. Quite the opposite actually, because even though this book was none of these things and even though it was not at all what I expected it was good! And in the end it was great!

This romance was much more than all of the above. It is deeper and much more serious. It is a love story where the two main characters already know each other. They grew up together. For a long time they only had each other. They love each other from the very start. Only the other person prevented them from breaking and crumbling to pieces. And even though Boone does seem like the typical flirt in the beginning, you soon realise that he is genuine. That he is serious about his intentions, that he is not at all a bad boy and that he never wants or wanted to do anything to hurt Carter.

From early on the reader knows these two have feelings for each other and they know as well. They know they love each other, but things happened in the past that prevents them from accepting this and prevents them from trying (again). Through flashbacks and a journey through time, the reader experiences their childhood. It starts when they were both young, then these flashbacks take the reader through their teenager years and slowly the entire history unravels with all the things that went wrong, all the outer influences, all the complex and horrible circumstances they grew up in.

The things they both had to endure in their past weren’t easy and this is the story about them having to learn ow to love and trust again and to actually show their feelings instead of burying them deep down. It is about them getting their lives under control and moving around all obstacles. It is about them learning to forgive and letting their walls falls and open up despite everything that happened in their past.

I loved this story. It is highly emotional and I was always afraid that something might happen to make everything crumble again. The characters were super sweet! Seeing them fix that fragile love between them was wonderful and Boone does everything to make Carter happy. He really fights for her, does all these little things for her and tries to protect her from the world. He knows her inside our and even though Carter is a little sceptical because of their past, she does believe him and wants to be with him. The things that happened between the two only make them stronger and that is fantastic.

There was one specific scene towards the end where I was afraid this would open up an opportunity for drama and mistrust and I wouldn’t have liked that at this point, because it wouldn’t have fit Carter’s character. However, the author did not include drama and that made me happy. She found another, very smooth way to clear things out, which made me very happy.

The only thing that bothered me a little was never knowing how old the two characters were in the present. There was always a mention of their age at the beginning of every flashback, but never for the present and I would have liked to know how old these two were in present events and how much of a gap there was between the last flashback and the current situation.

Sort of Normal is my first read by Liz Ashlee and what a wonderful first read it was. The story reels the reader in from the get-go and is an emotional journey into the lives of two very likeable characters in Carter Hart and Boone Fell. Tragedy, loss and secrets, all become apparent as the web of deception and betrayal unravel to reveal the heartaches of the past, and the reality of what should have been. This story has many elements, but Carter and Boone are the foundation and through suffering and heartache, prove that happiness can emerge after the pain subsides. I’m more than happy to recommend this book and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I really enjoyed this book. It does talk about dug addiction, abandonment and some other heavy topics. I did think that some of the dialogue did get repetitive at points but it was a still a heartwarming book about second chances (maybe even third chances) and learning from your mistakes. The characters are easy to root for and I was wanting to cry by the end of this book because of the crap that both of these characters have been through.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me a copy for an honest review.

I wasn't a huge fan of this novel. The characters and plot were fine and will definitely appeal to uoung readers, but I didn't feel invested in their lives like I would have hoped.