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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Paperback – March 12, 2013

by Jeanette Winterson (Author)

4.2 1,239 ratings

See all formats and editions

Lambda Literary AwardWinner, 2013

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"Magnificent . . . A tour de force of literature and love."Vogue

"Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is raucous. It hums with a dark refulgence from its first pages. . . . Singular and electric . . . [Winterson's] life with her adoptive parents was often appalling, but it made her the writer she is."The New York Times

"[Winterson is] one of the most daring and inventive writers of our timesearingly honest yet effortlessly lithe as she slides between forms, exuberant and unerring, demanding emotional and intellectual expansion of herself and of us. . . . In Why Be Happy,, [Winterson's] emotional life is laid bare . . . [in] a bravely frank narrative of truly coming undone. For someone in love with disguises, Winterson's openness is all the more moving; there's nothing left to hide, and nothing left to hide behind."Elle

Jeanette Winterson’s bold and revelatory novels have earned her widespread acclaim, establishing her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally best-selling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents, that is now often required reading in contemporary fiction classes.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life’s work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in a north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the universe as a cosmic dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past, which Winterson thought she had written over and repainted, rose to haunt her later in life, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also a book about other people’s literature, one that shows how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life raft that supports us when we are sinking.

Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belongingfor love, identity, home, and a mother.

From the Publisher

	12 BYTES	FRANKISSSTEIN	ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT	CHRISTMAS DAYS	SEXING THE CHERRY

Customer Reviews	280	1,111	3,603	934	143
Price	$11.49	$14.83	$9.39	$9.16	$12.83
	“Thought-provoking and necessary.”—Guardian (UK)	Longlisted for the Booker Prize	“A daring, unconventional comic novel.” —Chicago Tribune	“A feast of stories.” —NPR	“A dangerous jewel.” —San Francisco Chronicle

WARNING: California’s Proposition 65

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is raucous. It hums with a dark refulgence from its first pages. . . . Singular and electric . . . [Winterson's] life with her adoptive parents was often appalling, but it made her the writer she is."—The New York Times

"She's one of the most daring and inventive writers of our time—searingly honest yet effortlessly lithe as she slides between forms, exuberant and unerring, demanding emotional and intellectual expansion of herself and of us. . . She explores not only the structure of storytelling byt the interplay of past, present, and future, blending science fiction, realism, and a deep love of literature and history. . . . In Why Be Happy, [Winterson's] emotional life is laid bare. [Her] struggle to first accept and then love herself yields a bravely frank narrative of truly coming undone. For someone in love with disguises, Winterson's openness is all the more moving; there's nothing left to hide, and nothing left to hide behind."—A.M. Homes, Elle

"To read Jeanette Winterson is to love her. . . . The fierce, curious, brilliant British writer is winningly candid in Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? . . . [Winterson has] such a joy for life and love and language that she quickly becomes her very own one-woman band—one that, luckily for us, keeps playing on."—O, the Oprah Magazine

"Magnificent . . . What begins as a tragicomic tale of triumph over a soul-destroying childhood becomes something rougher and richer in the later passages. . . . Winterson writes with heartrending precision. . . . Ferociously funny and unfathomably generous, Winterson's exorcism-in-writing is an unforgettable quest for belonging, a tour de force of literature and love."—Vogue

"A memoir as unconventional and winning as [Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit], the rollicking bildungsroman . . . that instantly established [Winterson’s] distinctive voice. . . . It’s a testament to Winterson’s innate generosity, as well as her talent, that she can showcase the outsize humor her mother’s equally capacious craziness provides even as she reveals cruelties Mrs. Winterson imposed on her. . . . To confront Mrs. Winterson head on, in life, in nonfiction, demands courage; to survive requires imagination. . . . But put your money on Jeanette Winterson. Seventeen books ago, she proved she had what she needed. Heroines are defined not by their wounds, but by their triumphs.”—New York Times Book Review

"Jeanette Winterson's sentences become lodged in the brain for years, like song lyrics. . . . Beautiful . . . Powerful . . . Shockingly revealing . . . Raw and undigested . . . Never has anyone so outsized and exceptional struggled through such remembered pain to discover how intensely ordinary she was meant to be."—Slate

"Bold . . . One of the most entertaining and moving memoirs in recent memory . . . A coming-of-age story, a coming-out story, and a celebration of the act of reading . . . A marvelous gift of consolation and wisdom."—The Boston Globe

"Unflinching . . . That Winterson should have survived such a terrible early immersion in darkness at all is a kind of miracle. That she should have emerged, if not unscathed then still a functioning human being and a creative artist, is an even greater accomplishment."—San Francisco Chronicle

“With raw honesty and wit, Winterson reveals how she fought her way to adulthood, finding success, love—and ultimately forgiveness.”—People (4 stars)

"There’s always been something Byronic about Winterson—a stormily passionate soul bitterly indicting the society that excludes her while feeding on the Romantic drama of that exclusion. . . . Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? restores Winterson to her full power. . . . This is a book that will inspire much underlining."—Salon

"[Winterson's] novels—mongrels of autobiography, myth, fantasy, and formal experimentation—evince a colossal stamina for self-scrutiny. . . . [A] proud and vivid portrait of working-class life . . . This bullet of a book is charged with risk, dark mirth, hard-won self-knowledge. . . . You're in the hands of a master builder who has remixed the memoir into a work of terror and beauty."—Bookforum

"Riveting . . . Beautifully open . . . Why Be Happy is a meditation on loss, stories, and silences."—Newsday

"Riveting . . . There's a lot of flinty humor here, a lot of insight into the emotional legacy of adoption—and a generally refreshing admission that understanding life is as hard as living it."—Entertainment Weekly (A-)

"Arresting and suspenseful . . . Offers literary surprises and flashes of magnificent generosity and humor."—The Washington Post Book World

"[Why Be Happy] very possibly [contains] the most honest writing Winterson has ever done: bone-hard, bone-naked truth that hides nothing about the discovery process of finding her biological mother, and going mad. . . . Her observations read as verses of the King James Bible: bold, beautiful, and true."—Los Angeles Review of Books

"Captivating . . . A painful and poignant story of redemption, sexuality, identity, love, loss, and, ultimately, forgiveness."—Huffington Post

"Raw . . . A highly unusual, scrupulously honest, and endearing memoir."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Clarion, courageous, and vividly expressive, Winterson conducts a dramatic and revelatory inquiry into the forging of the self and liberating power of literature."—Booklist (starred)

"[Winterson] is piercingly honest, deeply creative, and stubbornly self-confident. . . . A testimony to the power of love and the need to feel wanted."—The Seattle Times

"Winterson pulls back the veil on her life as she really lived it and shows us that truth is not only stranger than fiction, but more painful and more beautiful as well. . . . Searing and candid . . . Winterson holds nothing back. . . . Written with poetic beauty."—Bookpage

"Shattering, brilliant . . . There is a sense at the end of this brave, funny, heartbreaking book that Winterson has somehow reconciled herself to the past. Without her adoptive mother, she wonders what she would be—Normal? Uneducated? Heterosexual?—and she doesn't much fancy the prospect. . . . She might have been happy and normal, but she wouldn't have been Jeanette Winterson. Her childhood was ghastly, as bad as Dickens's stint in the blacking factory, but it was also the crucible for her incendiary talent."—The Sunday Times (UK)

"Unconventional, ambitious . . . The experience of reading Why Be Happy is unusually visceral. Winterson confronts her actions, personality quirks, even sexuality, with a kind of violence, as if forcing herself to be honest. . . . The prose is often breathtaking: witty, biblical, chatty, and vigorous all at once."—Financial Times

"An extraordinary tragic-comic literary autobiography."— The Guardian (Best Book of 2011)

"Searing . . . Winterson's truth is just as compelling as any fiction."—Entertainment Weekly (The Must List)

"Moving, honest . . . Rich in detail and the history of the northern English town of Accrington, Winterson's narrative allows readers to ponder, along with the author, the importance of feeling wanted and loved."—Kirkus Reviews

"Compelling, in fact, perhaps even more so when compared to the fictionalized version written by Winterson as a twenty-five-year-old. Then, passion and anger seemed to burn off the page. . . . Now comes [an] emotional excavation as a fifty-two-year-old looking back with a cooler, more forgiving eye. . . . The specifics of [Winterson's] early abuse are vivid, violent, and no less horrifying for their familiarity. . . . If the memoir was begun as a final exorcism of the monster mother, it ends with a moving acceptance of her."—The Independent (UK)

"Stunningly lovely and fearlessly reflective, Why Be Happy is a reminder of what the project of remembering and recording can—and should—be."—Bookreporter

"Exquisite . . . About survival and triumph but also about deep wounds."—LAMDA Literary Review

"Winterson's memoir is a brave and searingly honest account of how she reclaimed her childhood through the power of language. . . . Rich in autobiographical detail, it is as wide and bold an experiment in the memoir form as any so far written. Indeed, one of the most daring—and riskiest—experiments this book pulls off is a sudden fast-forward from the world of the lonely, adopted child that we think we know from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, to the recent present where, in writing that is astonishingly naked and brave, Winterson reveals the legacy of that difficult childhood. . . . Why Be Happy is proudly, and sometimes painfully honest. It is also, arguably, the finest and most hopeful memoir to emerge in many years, and, as such, it really should not be missed."—The Times (UK)

"As compulsively readable as Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett's great memoir of friendship. . . . A tribute to the salvation of narrative."—Shelf Awareness

"At last—and essential new book by Jeanette Winterson. She is a natural memoirist. . . . Wry, urgent . . . Pressed on by the need for self-discovery, the prose doesn't miss a beat. . . . Winterson is frank about her own oddness, her fierceness. . . . If the first half of the book has been polished by retelling, the second half is raw, immediate. . . . Gone is the Nabokovian memoir in which the exquisite past is presented under glass, skewered by a pin. This is the age of instant communication, of forthright, unmediated responses. Winterson has her finger to the wind."—Evening Standard (UK)

“Provides a vivid picture of the grotesque behaviors of the lunatic mother she refers to as ‘Mrs. Winterson.’ This is a detailed portrait of a life that saved itself. The hard work Winterson did to find her place in the world after growing up as an outsider’s outsider is not exaggerated. We are lucky she survived to tell the tale.”—Library Journal (starred review)

"As beautifully crafted as any of Winterson's fiction."—Foreword

"Winterson makes the pages sing. . . . A moving, artfully constructed piece of writing that sustains tension until the last sentence."—The Globe and Mail (Favorite Book of the Year)

“Idiosyncratic . . . [Winterson] is intense on the page . . . [with] more charisma than a Pentecostal preacher. . . . A sad story, a funny story, a brave story.”—The Scotsman

"This is no narrative of victimhood, but one of gratitude. In its lugubrious humor, its striving to find virtue in unlikely places and in its willingness to try to understand the forces that damaged her mother, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? recalls a feminine version of Edmund Gosse's Father and Son. . . . Winterson lends all [her] fierce poetry, intelligence, and epigrammatic punch to [the] prose. . . Thrilling as the author may be in the denunciation of her mother, the tale as a whole foregrounds the woman's vulnerability; empathy keeps breaking through."—The Australian

"We are shown 'how it is when the mind works with its own brokenness,' and come to respect Winterson's psychological courage and her rage to love." —Sunday Telegraph

"This difficult, spirited, engaging book, with its touching openness and maddening lack of candor, is a resonant affirmation of the power of storytelling to make things better." —The Daily Mail

About the Author

Born in Manchester in 1959 and adopted into a firmly religious family, JEANETTE WINTERSON put herself through higher education and studied at Oxford University. She is the author of numerous novels, including Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Sexing the Cherry, and The Passion. Winterson lives in Gloucestershire, UK.

Visit her website at jeanettewinterson.com

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; Reprint edition (March 12, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802120873
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802120878
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #341,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #441 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies
- #607 in General Gender Studies
- #10,612 in Memoirs (Books)

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4.2 1,239 ratings

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Jeanette Winterson, OBE (born 27 August 1959) is an award-winning English writer, who became famous with her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against conventional values. Some of her other novels have explored gender polarities and sexual identity. Winterson is also a broadcaster and a professor of creative writing.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Mariusz Kubik, http://www.mariuszkubik.pl [Attribution, GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They praise the author's clear writing style and her skill in describing her story. The narrative style is described as autobiographical and heart-wrenching. Readers appreciate the insightful and profound storytelling that contains many truths. The humor and pathos are mixed together, with the author's great wit and piercing sarcasm shining through. Overall, customers describe the book as a great read that is enjoyable and thought-provoking.

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Readability Writing quality Narrative style Thought provoking Humor Beauty Strength

83 customers mention "Readability"73 positive10 negative

Customers appreciate the book's readability. They find it interesting and well-written, with literary references and suspense. Readers enjoy the fine, elegant writing style that makes it read faster than other memoirs.

"...I identified with her love of literature and poetry, and how books opened the world to her as a lonely child who was not allowed any safe place of..." Read more

"...discusses her mental health towards the end of the book was really interesting and inspiring...." Read more

"...Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal is an amazing memoir. It is not told in a linear fashion but it is full of life and passion...." Read more

"...I delighted in virtually every word, every inflection, and how love prevails, even when it doesn't seem like love...." Read more

80 customers mention "Writing quality"67 positive13 negative

Customers praise the writing quality. They find the prose brilliant, clear, and breathtaking. The author writes from a different, rawer approach than her classic Organges novels. They describe the book as full of wisdom, clarity, and insight, in a lyrical and confessional style that makes them think of Sexton.

"I love this book! Ms. Winterson is a beautiful and skilled British writer, so rare in adoption memoirs, and her life is a harrowing tale of a soul..." Read more

"...Christianity, general spirituality, writing, literature, and life with clear honesty. She doesn't write with an all or nothing mentality, either...." Read more

"...Complex, yet simply told, Winterson bares her soul, telling her readers that she never learned how to love nor how to be loved...." Read more

"...It is read by the author and what a reading it is...." Read more

75 customers mention "Narrative style"66 positive9 negative

Customers enjoy the narrative style of the book. They find the author's storytelling skillful and engaging. The memoir is heartfelt and honest, providing a glimpse into the human soul. Readers say each chapter draws them into Winterson's life and their own. Overall, they describe the book as an artful work that is deeply personal to Winterson and the reader.

"...I admired her skill and grace in telling her story, and in explaining how no story is literally true but an attempt to make sense and order of the..." Read more

"...This memoir is deeply personal to Winterson and to me, as the reader. I felt I was looking into the window of her soul. "..." Read more

"This is a very affecting look into a difficult childhood and the difficulties of working class families in the UK...." Read more

"...in the coal-hole singing 'Cheer Up Ye Saints of God' is both terrifyingly sad, immensely admirable, and humorous in a dark way...." Read more

49 customers mention "Thought provoking"46 positive3 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking and profound. They appreciate the author's insights into how the past has changed. The descriptions are worth the time to absorb, and the book contains many truths about life and meaning. Readers also mention that the book is full of wisdom and engages the reader with wit and honesty.

"...She is a woman capable of introspection, growth, and wit, even in the political realm, as shown in her initial embrace of Margaret Thatcher and..." Read more

"...I think her life and views are extremely inspirational. She discusses Christianity, general spirituality, writing, literature, and life with clear..." Read more

"...She divulges her tumultuous past with style, wit and grace all the while showing her readers, wisdom and the strength to endure...." Read more

"...It offers countless gems of inspiration about taking charge of one's life/happiness and staying strong...." Read more

26 customers mention "Humor"26 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's humor. They find it entertaining yet poignant, with great wit and insights. The story evokes both laughter and sadness, with the author's trademark passion and sarcasm shining through.

"...She is a woman capable of introspection, growth, and wit, even in the political realm, as shown in her initial embrace of Margaret Thatcher and..." Read more

"...She divulges her tumultuous past with style, wit and grace all the while showing her readers, wisdom and the strength to endure...." Read more

"...of God' is both terrifyingly sad, immensely admirable, and humorous in a dark way...." Read more

"...searing glance into the human soul -- this book vacillates between humor and horror, between pleaure and pain...." Read more

15 customers mention "Beauty"15 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's style. They find it easy to read yet complex, with a humorous and concise writing style. The author is described as brilliant.

"I love this book! Ms. Winterson is a beautiful and skilled British writer, so rare in adoption memoirs, and her life is a harrowing tale of a soul..." Read more

"...A lovely, interesting story. Insightful reflections and universalizing insights...." Read more

"...I do love her style of writing. It is elegant and fluid with obvious sincerity...." Read more

"...Anyone who is puzzled by same sex love. Anyone who rejoices in fine, elegant, thought-provoking writing, regardless of their circumstances." Read more

6 customers mention "Strength"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book has a strong tone. They describe it as lively, powerful, and intense.

"...wit and grace all the while showing her readers, wisdom and the strength to endure...." Read more

"...of inspiration about taking charge of one's life/happiness and staying strong. This is absolutely the best book I've read in years." Read more

"vim, vigor, vinegar ... funny, succinct, crisp ... and every once in awhile a stab of ideogogy like some traffic sign on a remote highway,..." Read more

"This book was truly amazing! Winterson has wisdom to tell and it’s powerful...." Read more

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maryanne
Best Adoption Memoir in recent years
Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2012
Verified Purchase

I love this book! Ms. Winterson is a beautiful and skilled British writer, so rare in adoption memoirs, and her life is a harrowing tale of a soul battered but not broken by a deeply abusive childhood and difficult life. The title comes from something her adoptive mother, whom she always refers to as "Mrs. Winterson,", said to teenaged Jeanette when she said being a lesbian and loving women made her happy. Mrs. Winterson replied, "why be happy when you can be normal"? That sums up one of the worst adoptive moms ever very well. The irony is that Mrs. Winterson was far from "normal" herself.

Jeanette's generosity of spirit comes through in her embrace of the better parts of a severely Fundamentalist religious upbringing by a mentally ill adoptive mother and passive father, and her attempts at understanding and forgiveness of things that seem unforgivable. The ghosts of this past almost destroy her, but she emerges a survivor who loves and embraces life and refuses to settle for life without passion. She is a woman capable of introspection, growth, and wit, even in the political realm, as shown in her initial embrace of Margaret Thatcher and later rejection of her policies. This is a book about so much more than adoption, but the deep inner pain of being an adoptee who was never accepted for herself in a poor and dysfunctional family is always at the core.

This may sound grim, but it is not the story of a whining victim nor of a person who blames everyone else for her ills. That Jeanette got out of that life at 16 and got a degree from Oxford University by sheer force of will and desire is a tribute to her inner strength, despite dealing with adoption issues and her sexuality which was soundly condemned by her church and parents. Her story is told with as much humour as pathos, and shows her plucky and hopeful attitude even in the worst of times.

Yes, she searched, reunited with her birth mother, was fully accepted, but that was not the happy ending either; in fact, the book does not end but leaves the future open, as it is. Like many adoptees, Jeanette does not feel fully at home in either family, despite the warm welcome from her birth mother and other kin. But she has reached a place of enough self-awareness to make her own home with her partner and her books and her vivid and life-saving imagination. She has endured and prevailed despite crushing obstacles.

I identified with her love of literature and poetry, and how books opened the world to her as a lonely child who was not allowed any safe place of her own. I admired her skill and grace in telling her story, and in explaining how no story is literally true but an attempt to make sense and order of the chaos that is life. We need more books with this level of insight and complexity to do justice to the adoptee story.

This is the best adoption memoir I have read since B.J. Lifton's work, and I recommend it to all.

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Frank
An Inspirational and Real Book
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2013
Verified Purchase
Jeanette Winterson has such a command of mixing complex intellectual and spiritual ideas with concrete and real language and situations. For me, personally, this book helped a lot. The way Ms. Winterson discusses her mental health towards the end of the book was really interesting and inspiring. She has some great words about overcoming adversity and how creativity is linked with the search for health.

One thing I thought the booked lacked was a description of her writing books like Sexing the Cherry and Gut Symmetries. She mostly writes about her years growing up, her early college years, and then her recent life with her birth family.

She writes here with her trademark style. She uses her approach to non-linear time as she talks about her life and coming of age. This book really gives a glimpse at how and why Ms. Winterson is the way she is, and writes the way she does.

I think her life and views are extremely inspirational. She discusses Christianity, general spirituality, writing, literature, and life with clear honesty. She doesn't write with an all or nothing mentality, either. She acknowledges both the positives, negatives, and different shades of her experiences in a very open way.

On the whole, I felt like this book really helped encourage me personally and spiritually. And it was extremely inspiring to hear how she can be so smart, yet so humble and non judgmental, and still very real.

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Laura Booksnob
A deeply passionate, personal memoir.
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2013
Verified Purchase
"Books, for me, are a home. Books don't make a home-they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space. There is warmth there too - a hearth. I sit down with a book and I am warm. I know that from the chilly nights on the doorstep." pg. 61

Jeanette Winterson grew up in an unhappy, abusive, and religious Pentecostal family. She was adopted at a young age and her mother planned to mold her into a missionary of God. Yet Jeanette heard time and time again that her parents were led to the wrong crib. Jeanette grew up with the knowledge that she never really belonged. She didn't belong to her adoptive parents, she didn't belong to her birth parents, she didn't belong to her public school because she was so religious and she didn't belong to her church because she was a lesbian. She spent many nights outside, alone on her doorstep.

She was kicked out of her home at the age of 16 and was homeless living in her car. Growing up, books were forbidden in her house and so the library became a haven and she began to read every author from A to Z in English Literature. She applied to Oxford and to her surprise got in as the "working class" experiment. Jeanette then writes her first book, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, when she was 24. Some words of advice: Read Oranges are Not the Only Fruit before you read this book. It will make a big difference.

I once heard that if you don't deal with the trauma of your past, that the trauma will find you and make you deal with it. Well that is what happened to Jeanette. She sunk into a type of madness, became depressed and emerged forever changed. When Jeanette decides to go on with her life she then makes the decision to find her birth mother.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal is an amazing memoir. It is not told in a linear fashion but it is full of life and passion. Complex, yet simply told, Winterson bares her soul, telling her readers that she never learned how to love nor how to be loved. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal is an explanation of her book, Oranges and a confession of a very painful past. She divulges her tumultuous past with style, wit and grace all the while showing her readers, wisdom and the strength to endure. I was so inspired and riveted to Jeanette's story and have many passages of wisdom marked in my book. This memoir is deeply personal to Winterson and to me, as the reader. I felt I was looking into the window of her soul.

"Nobody can feel too much, though many of us work very hard at feeling too little.
Feeling is frightening.
Well, I find it so."
Pg. 187

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Diego Valencia Robles
Bien
Reviewed in Mexico on November 21, 2024
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Bien

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Kaden
Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on November 23, 2017
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Fantastic read

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Thais Andrade
Livro pra vida toda
Reviewed in Brazil on October 5, 2017
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Jeanette já está entre minhas escritoras favoritas. O livro é ótimo, daqueles que ficam com você. Uma história de vida incrível. pretendo ler novamente no futuro. Vale a pena comprar.

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A P. B
Uni
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 19, 2013
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have read a couple of pages and am enjoying it there is load of info which will be great for the 4000 essay i am doing

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Amazon カスタマー
ジャネット・ウィンターソンによる歌付き!
Reviewed in Japan on December 23, 2015
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インターネットのレビューを見ていたら、オーディオブックもあるということで
興味がありましたが、なんと1400円位！。しかも作者による朗読！
TOEICのヒアリング教材にしようというのも兼ねて購入しましたが。
現地(私が買ったのはオーストリア?)からの送付だったので、もともとの
配達予定期間内ではありますが3週間位かかりました。
CDは5枚で7時間位です。
へぼへぼTOEICしている位なので本の方も理解度は50％位だと思いますが、
音声では勝手にわからない部分を省略した脳内処理をするのか、
わかるところだけわかった感があります。
日本にも村上春樹による自作の朗読CDとかあればいいのに。

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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Paperback – March 12, 2013

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5.0 out of 5 stars Best Adoption Memoir in recent years

4.0 out of 5 stars An Inspirational and Real Book

5.0 out of 5 stars A deeply passionate, personal memoir.

Top reviews from other countries

3.0 out of 5 stars Bien

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars

5.0 out of 5 stars Livro pra vida toda

5.0 out of 5 stars Uni

5.0 out of 5 stars ジャネット・ウィンターソンによる歌付き!

Best Adoption Memoir in recent years

An Inspirational and Real Book

A deeply passionate, personal memoir.

Bien

Five Stars

Livro pra vida toda

Uni

ジャネット・ウィンターソンによる歌付き!