What the **** is Normal?!

Sep 30, 2024 9:22 AM

Author:Francesca Martinez

If you grow up in a world where wrinkles are practically illegal, going bald is cause for a mental breakdown, and women over size zero are encouraged to shoot themselves (immediately), what the hell do you do if you’re, gasp … DISABLED?

Whatever body you’re born into, the pressure to be normal is everywhere. But have you ever met a normal person? What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they eat for breakfast?

And what the **** does normal mean anyway?

This is the award-winning wobbly comedian Francesca Martinez’s funny, personal, and universal story of how she learned to stick two shaky fingers up to the crazy expectations of a world obsessed with being ‘normal’.

Reviews

Her observations and perspective are unique and powerful. This is a funny, compassionate and inspiring story of how 'being different' can become, with the right attitude, an unlikely advantage. Also, it's bloody funny and touching

—— Russell Brand

A cheerful optimistic belly-laugh broadside at prejudice and a wonderful testament to the power of “being funny”, I love Francesca Martinez

—— Steve Coogan

A wonderful read! Warm, funny and unforgettable

—— Jonathan Ross

A very, very important [book] ... I can’t think of a work that has so brilliantly expressed how a person disabled from birth sees herself

—— Dominic Lawson , The Sunday Times

As entertaining as it is moving ... this book is a wonderful, funny, warm coming-of-age memoir about finding your own path in life. Long may she wobble. Five stars.

—— Viv Groskop, The Telegraph

A comedian brilliantly captures how a person disabled from birth sees herself

—— The Sunday Times , Culture

It is honest and refreshing but most of all it is bloody funny. What the **** is normal anyway?

—— Telegraph

Life, love and loss - it's all here ... Warm, crisp and beautifully layered - like its author,Spectacles is a complete delight

—— Independent on Sunday

[A] deftly written and belly-laugh funny autobiography . . . Though she never suggests she might be remotely brainy, she clearly is. Her vocabulary makes Will Self's seem lacking, her writing is full of discreetly clever allusions . . . If she wants her readers to like her, she certainly achieved it with this reviewer who laughed and cried and secretly wants her as a best friend

—— Elizabeth Fremantle , Daily Express

Sue's memoir will leave you feeling like you've made a new best friend. Introducing us to a cast of friends, family and love interests, and not forgetting a psychopathic nun, Sue picks apart life in a refreshingly honest, warm and downright hilarious way... Spectacles firmly cements her as an exciting writer of the future

—— OK Magazine

This smart and funny story is far from the photo-heavy, ghost-written volumes that it will compete with . . . Perkins is such a good writer . . . incapable of writing a boring sentence

—— Cathy Rentzenbrink , Sunday Express

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