Effie’s not perfect. Neither is Theo. But together, they’re pretty close.
Matilda ‘Effie’ Heaton has always felt like she’s swimming against the tide. Everyone around her has life sorted, but Effie’s living with her parents and crying into a wine bottle at night. The only thing she loves is her job at a bookshop, where she can lose herself in other people’s stories.
I’d always thought that films overplayed the whole broken heart thing, but now that I was feeling it for real, I know that the films never did it justice.
But then she meets Theo, who knows only too well that life isn’t something to take for granted.
Because Theo has a life-changing secret, and as Effie starts to realise that she’s falling in love instead of falling apart, fate steps in and deals her a new hand. And this time, the stakes are high.
A gorgeous, heart-breaking read for fans of Jojo Moyes and Gail Honeyman.
Hannah Sunderland was born and bred in Sutton Coldfield, north of Birmingham, where she still lives with her menagerie of animals. She has a BA Hons degree in Fine Art and now runs her own business, a company that makes props for crime scene reconstruction.
She inherited the writing gene from her father. She has an obsessional love of stationery, cats and Sour Patch Kids. The writing bug set in when someone handed her a notebook and she realised that she could create a world within it. Her claim to fame is playing Tree #4 in her year one school play.
Matilda ‘Effie’ Heaton (MEH) has been falling apart for a number of years, a not so secret alcoholic, she has a difficult relationship with her mother who she always refers to as Joy. Joy can’t understand why her daughter doesn’t do more with her life, doesn’t try harder and drinks so much. Her dad spends most of his days hiding away in his office buying and selling on Facebook and when he does arrive to be with Joy and Effie, he often falls instantly asleep!
Effie claims to excel at being a failure, she does it better than most. She dreams of being a published author but her first attempt fails, and she ends up working in a book shop. She has a life full of complicated relationships and is full of hatred and bitterness. A failed date (he thought he was meeting her friend as her online dating profile shows her and her friend in the photo – top tip – don’t do that on your dating profile!) leads her to meet Theo.
Theo is broken in his own secret ways but it’s not so obvious. He helps Effie by creating a list for her of things to achieve. Effie doesn’t realise that she loves him until she almost loses him, but is it too late? He pushes her away and she can’t understand why.
Effie grows so much throughout the book and while she appears to have a lot going for her, she can’t see it without the help of Theo and his instructions but through it all, she learns to appreciate what she has and finally ends up happy.
This was a great read, I really enjoyed following Effie’s growth and the characters within the book provide different elements and views, while she can see her friends are in love, she can’t see she is too. The characters are very real and well developed on the whole though, being critical, I would have liked to have learnt more about Theo and Effie’s dad was almost a non-character because he features so little.
This is not your average boy meets girl fiction where they live happily ever after, but a more in-depth book with highs and lows following Effie’s story and the impact of others on her life.
This is a great debut novel from Hannah Sunderland, and I hope it gets the attention it deserves!
Thank you to Net Galley, the Publisher and the Author for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
| Title | Very Nearly Normal |
| Author | Hannah Sunderland |
| Series | N/A |
| Format | eARC |
| Page Count | 392 Pages |
| Genre | Romance |
| Publisher | Avon |
| Release Date | 14th May 2020 |
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