Some Kind of Normal by Heidi Willis

Format: Book

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

My review

I finished this on Monday 7 June 2010. I was on the train, surrounded by people, trying to hide the fact that I was crying. It was extremely difficult and I’m not sure if I succeeded or not. But in the end it didn’t matter. I didn’t care.

Some Kind of Normal is different to what I usually read. It’s a book that I probably wouldn’t have taken any notice of, except for the fact that I’d been reading the author’s blog for several months.

Babs Babcock is a wife and mother. She’s not special in any way. She considers herself unintelligent, uninformed and unlikely to ever amount to anything. She is even unsure in her faith.

When her daughter collapses in the driveway one morning, their lives change forever.

This is a story of a family battling with difficult decisions that go against everything they believe in. They must fight their inner demons, but they also find themselves fighting against each other and the community.

It’s a story that challenges the reader to think about what they would do if they found themselves in a similar situation.

Babs is fictitious, but she’s so well written you’d swear she was a real woman with real problems.

Having a family history of type 1 diabetes, I also learned a lot about this medical condition and now understand what relatives of mine are going through, which I never fully appreciated before.

You won’t find dragons, magical worlds, brave warriors or evil villains here.

What you will find is a mother’s battle to keep her daughter alive.

And it’s so real, it’s heart-wrenching.

It’s an excellent book and I highly recommend it.