Tag: am i normal yet
Top 5 Feminist YA Books
Ahead of tonight’s #UKYAchat about feminism and gender
equality in YA, Holly has written about her top 5 feminist YA Books for Queen of Contemporary blog. Here’s a juicy taster of what to expect:
‘Am I Normal Yet? is the first book in a
trilogy about a group of girls who set up their own feminist campaign
group called ‘The Spinster Club’. I think YA gets a bad rep when it
comes to feminism. So many people keep bleating out the dreaded words
‘Bella’ and ‘Swan’ – like Twilight isn’t a) TEN years old, and b) Not
the only YA book out there. In fact, YA have LOADS of incredibly
feminist books…’
Head over to Queen of Contemporary to see the books Holly has included in her top 5!
And don’t forget to log into Twitter at 8pm, search for #UKYAchat and join in the conversation with authors, bloggers, librarians and readers about feminism and gender roles in YA.
#TBT Q&A with PaperTrailYA
Hello Day 18 of #100DaysofNormal! On this gorgeous June day, we’re throwing back to a brill Q&A Holly did with PaperTrailYA blog earlier this month. Here’s a teeny-tiny taster:
‘Hi, Holly! Thank you
so much for taking the time out of your schedule to chat with us today.
How does it feel to be bringing out your third novel Am I Normal Yet?
I’m
so excited and yet SO terrified at the same time. This book is like my
Horcrux, and I really hope everyone loves it as dearly as I do. What’s
so exciting is it’s the first in a trilogy. I’m loving getting to stay
with the same bunch of characters for three books, after writing two
standalones.’
Read the interview in full at http://bit.ly/1QFmPWB.
Congratulations to @emmarrobinson on Twitter – she’s the very lucky winner of the signed copy of SOULMATES. We hope you enjoy it Emma!
Read the first chapter of SOULMATES at www.usborne.com/soulmates.
There will be lots more opportunities to win copies of Holly’s books – so stay tuned and be sure to follow Holly on Twitter (@Holly_BourneYA).
Holly Bourne at YALC 2015
The official YALC 2015 schedule has arrived at the usbornepublishing office and not only is the lineup AMAZE but it also includes our very own Holly Bourne!
YALC is a celebration of young adult books managed by reading charity Book Trust. It’s an interactive event
where YA fans meet their favourite authors, listen to panel discussions
and take part in workshops. It is taking place on 17th-19th July at London Film and Comic Con at Olympia (Hammersmith Road, London W14 8UX).
Holly is going to be at YALC on Sunday 19th July at 10:30am chatting all things Mental Health in YA alongside Brian Conaghan, Annabel Pitcher and Matt Whyman. After the event, Holly will be signing copies of her books.
Here are Holly’s full event details:
Sunday 19th July 2015
Main stage
Mental Health in YA
10.30-11.15am
As part our our ‘What is Normal?’ strand, we’ll be speaking out about mental health in books for young adults. Authors Holly Bourne, Brian Conaghan, Annabel Pitcher and Matt Whyman will be exploring the representation of mental health issues in YA today.
The full lineup is on the Booktrust website here.
Hope to see you all there!
Read the first chapter of Am I Normal Yet? online now at www.usborne.com/readAmINormalYet. What are you waiting for? 🙂
#FeminismFriday
If you follow Holly on Twitter, or read any of her books, you’ll know that feminism is a topic she is PASSIONATE about. So every Friday Holly, myself and Hannah will be posting something to do with feminism – whether that’s Holly’s thoughts on a particular topic, her top 5 feminist websites or just some fun articles and features we’ve come across on the web and want to share with you. To kick off, we had a few questions we wanted to ask Holly:
What does feminism mean to you?
Equality for everyone, regardless of their gender. IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE. I know some people (wrongly) think feminists want to win power from the guys, lock them in cages, and then walk them around on leashes made from our plaited grown-out armpit hair. But that’s not it. Feminism is for all genders. Feminism benefits all genders.
What first got you interested in feminism?
I’ve always had this feeling growing up that something was…wrong… but couldn’t quite work out why I was feeling so icky. I had this constant conflict inside of me, between feeling something was wasn’t right, but then also wanting to partake in the wrongness. I remember, one rainy day at school, the boys decided to spend their lunch-hour lining all us girls up in order of who had the nicest arse. Half of me thought, “this is disgusting” and the other half thought, “I hope I win”.
It was only in my twenties, when the fourth wave of feminism hit, that I was like – hang on – I LIKE THIS. I LIKE WHAT YOU’RE SAYING VERY MUCH. And, How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran really did change my life. It made feminism FUNNY, and approachable, and it was like a big fat fire was lit inside of me. I really think humour is the best gateway drug into feminism. Start with the ridiculous, like, “I know, I’ll spend forty quid painfully waxing off all my pubes, even though no-one ever sees them”…then build-up to the big stuff – rape culture, abuse, female genital mutilation, rights to education…
Thanks Holly!
What first got you interested in feminism and what does it mean to you? Let us know by posting your thoughts using the hashtag #100DaysofNormal. We can’t wait to hear from you!
Myths about OCD
I think anyone whose experienced OCD wants to throttle people who say, ‘Ooo, I’m soooo OCD’ if they like their bedroom tidy. It’s such a misunderstood condition, and, as a word, has really found it’s way into our lexicons. But we’re using the word wrong! OCD is not just being tidy and clean. The correct words for these personality quirks are… umm…well ‘tidy’ and ‘clean’. They are NOT ‘OCD’.
My MC, Evie, has contamination OCD. Yes, she washes her hands a lot… But part of my desire to write Am I Normal Yet? was to show it’s so much more than this, and to help readers understand what it’s like to live in a brain that never leaves you alone.
I found this Ted video, debunking common myths about OCD, and I wanted to share it with you.
Holly x
Win ‘Am I Normal Yet?’ – an amazingly Goodread.
We’re celebrating Day 10 of #100DaysofNormal by giving you the chance to win one of 10 copies of Am I Normal Yet? with Goodreads. Head over to Goodreads to enter: http://bit.ly/1GrIrPm
And don’t forget to add Am I Normal Yet? to your Goodreads bookshelf!
Good luck everyone 🙂
We all want to be normal… or do we?
When you work for a
youth charity, like I do, you get used to the same phrase cropping up over and
over.
Am I normal?
Is this normal?
Can you let me know if this is normal?
It doesn’t matter whether people are talking about
their relationship, their sex lives, their various dangly body parts, their
family situations, their reactions to taking a certain ‘extra-curricular’
drug…they all want to hear the same thing.
This is normal.
You are normal.
It’s OK.
Normal normal normal.
In fact, lots of our most popular articles over at
the website I work for – TheSite.org – all have ‘normal’ in the title. But what
does it even mean? And why are we so concerned with being like everyone else?
In my book, Am
I Normal Yet? my protagonist Evie is struggling with the label of OCD she
was given when she was just 14 and how that impacts her opinion of herself. She
sees her mental health diagnosis as confirmation of her ‘abnormality’ and keeps
it a secret from all her new friends at college. All the wants is to just be
like everybody else, but throughout the book she learns she’s chasing a ghost.
So, what is normal?
In language terms, it means conforming to a
standard, In mathmatics, it’s being on the boring bit of a graph with everyone
else. It throws up words and phrases like, ‘average’ or ‘like everybody else’.
And though, in some contexts, the word is a very comforting thing to hear – say, like
at the doctor’s when you go there with something embarrassing – I worry we
cling to it in other parts of our lives, compare ourselves to others and make
ourselves feel generally…well…crap.
Here’s the thing – we can’t
be normal in every part of our lives. It’s impossible. All of us have unique quirks that others don’t. We’re all special-yet-totally-oddball
snowflakes, smashing into each other, muddling and guessing our way through life. Chasing normality is a bit like whack-a-mole – your individual bits
are always going to pop up no matter how much you suppress them. Why not try
embracing them? See them as positive things, rather than things to hide away?
My own abnormals
I have mildly-webbed
hands. TOTALLY GROSS – I know. (I have to
say, they’re only slightly webbed, but there is still enough of a webbage for
me to show people at dull parties to spruce things up a bit). I have a
phobia of buttons. I have low blood pressure and faint if I stand up for too
long. I hate travelling and
literally have to be drugged before I’m put on a plane. My feet turn blue when I’m
cold. I can do the most accurate impression of Ronan Keating the world has ever
known… Essentially guys, I’m a freak! A total nutter. And I could focus on my ‘abnormalities’
and wish I could be more like you…but then you’re a freak too. You really are. And I’m mighty glad for it – and hope you can be too.