For today’s Throwback Thursday post I’m delighted to share with you my review of the brilliant and emotional Differently Normal by the amazing Tammy Robinson. I was lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to read an early version of this outstanding book thanks to Tammy, the publisher and THE Book Club on Facebook. Now with added chapters this new, expanded edition has even more to love than it did before. Differently Normal is published by Piatkus Books.
About the book:
A spellbinding young love story of hopes, dreams and sacrifice, for anyone who loved The Fault in Our Stars or Me Before You.
If it doesn’t break your heart, it isn’t love…
For Maddy, life is all about routine. It has to be, to keep her autistic sister happy and healthy. With just Maddy and her mother as Bee’s full-time carers, there’s no time in Maddy’s life for complications like friends, let alone a boyfriend. So when Maddy meets Albert, the last thing on her mind is falling in love.
Albert has resigned himself to always being a disappointment to his strict father. But then he meets Maddy, and gets a glimpse of what being part of a functioning family can be like – and the tremendous sacrifices people will make for the ones they love.
But are Maddy and Albert willing to make the biggest of sacrifices for each other? Some things, they are about to discover, are outside of their control…
Differently Normal is a love story with the biggest of hearts. It shows us that anyone can find love, and anyone has the capacity to love, even when the odds are stacked against them.
About the author:
Tammy Robinson is a contemporary author from the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. After years spent working her way around the world, Tammy settled back in New Zealand with her husband, their two girls and a newborn baby boy. She has published six novels through Amazon, and DIFFERENTLY NORMAL is her first novel with Hachette ANZ, and Piatkus in the UK. She has just finished her eighth novel, PHOTOS OF YOU, which is available to buy now.
My Review:
Differently Normal is a beautifully written story that will stay with me for a long time to come. With memorable characters that drew me in from the very first page, it is also a book that resonated with me on a very personal level. It portrays the reality of caring for a loved one with a disability in such a believable way, and is told with the care, humour and sensitivity I have come to expect from this author’s work.
Tammy Robinson is a born storyteller. She breathes life into her characters, making you love and care about them, feeling every emotion right along with them. Maddy and Albert are brought vividly to life on the page and, more than anything, you’re willing everything to work out well and for them to get all the things that life has so far denied them.
The unwavering love Maddy has for her sister, Bee (who has autism), is as heartbreaking as it is heartwarming, and as the parent of a (now adult) child with a disability, my heart goes out to her as she struggles to come to terms with the responsibility of caring for someone you love who is ‘differently normal’.
A beautiful story of love and heartache that takes you on an emotional rollercoaster of a ride, ‘Differently Normal’ has a cast of memorable characters and a story that will stay with you long after the final page has been turned. Highly recommended.
Differently Normal by Tammy Robinson is available to buy now: Amazon UK
Her latest book Photos of You is also available to buy now: Amazon UK
Cal Turner Reviews 