Reviewed by Chris*

TITLE:  How To Be A Normal Person

AUTHOR:  T.J. Klune

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  290 pages

BLURB:  

Gustavo Tiberius is not normal. He knows this. Everyone in his small town of Abby, Oregon, knows this. He reads encyclopedias every night before bed. He has a pet ferret called Harry S. Truman. He owns a video rental store that no one goes to. His closest friends are a lady named Lottie with drag queen hair and a trio of elderly Vespa riders known as the We Three Queens.

Gus is not normal. And he’s fine with that. All he wants is to be left alone.

Until Casey, an asexual stoner hipster and the newest employee at Lottie’s Lattes, enters his life. For some reason, Casey thinks Gus is the greatest thing ever. And maybe Gus is starting to think the same thing about Casey, even if Casey is obsessive about Instagramming his food.

But Gus isn’t normal and Casey deserves someone who can be. Suddenly wanting to be that someone, Gus steps out of his comfort zone and plans to become the most normal person ever.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

REVIEW:  

How to Review a Book by T.J. Klune

Step One: Fanboy over the fact that Klune has written a new book.

This is a very important step, which is why it is step one. The build-up to reading a Klune book is half the fun. So take to social media and squee your little fanboy heart out. If all your pent-up excitement is not properly vented before undertaking the book, there is a chance you will explode in the middle of chapter 9 and you will never ever find out if Gus was able to purchase the internet. #horriblefate

Step Two: Acquire the book.

Do not, under any circumstances, buy this book from a band of roving pirates dressed up like Johnny Depp. They are most likely impostors and not Johnny Depp (especially the one with no hair) and are looking to con you into paying for a copy of a 1974 phone book with HOWDA BE A NOMAL PERSONN scribble in Magic Marker across the top page.

Do buy this book at a reputable book seller place. Don’t be an impostor Johnny Depp. Impostor Johnny Depp has no friends and a problem with taming his nose hair.

Step Three: Buy provisions for the journey ahead.

Buy a box of tissues, a bar of chocolate, and an alcoholic beverage of your choice. What you do with them is your own business, but you will want them later on when you are stuck sobbing into your ferret over the fact that Pastor Tommy died before ever seeing Gustavo fall in love with an asexual hipster. No one wants to put down their book to drive to Target to buy a new box of tissues because you didn’t replace your last one after that wild zoo-themed party you threw two weeks ago and have never been able to get the stains off the wall since.

Step Four: Start reading…keep reading…keep reading…fall over when going for your 5th cup of coffee because you have not slept in two days…curl up in a ball on your kitchen floor…keep reading

(this works best if you have trained your pet to change the pages of the book for you so you can conserve energy, though most pets find this kind of work degrading and will sick up in your favorite shoe in retaliation)

Step Five: Employ the art of the giggle snort

You might find this book funny, but beware!! you don’t want to laugh too loudly because other people will ask you what is so funny and then you will have to stop reading to explain to them that you are highly amused by the idea of gang-bang babies and they will look at you weird, and most importantly you will not be reading and that is not acceptable. A giggle snort is a much better answer. It is short, quick, and as long as you are not trying to drink your coffee at the same time, perfectly safe.

Step Six: Do not throw your kindle

I repeat, do not, under any circumstances throw your kindle against your wall, your floor, your monkey, or your sibling who has just dropped by on their way to Alabama and wanted to ask you to look after their pet snake Slivester Ssstalone while they are gone.

Remember, your kindle is completely and totally innocent. It is not your kindle’s fault that T.J. Klune is an evil evil man who likes to leave his readers hanging. If your kindle had a choice, I’m sure it would be perfectly happy to have you know the truth about the lesbian sister trio. So be kind to your kindle. #evilauthors #iwillfindoutwhereyousleep #pumkinspicelattes

Step Seven: Get as little sleep the night before writing your review so that the sleep deprivation really sinks into your brain and makes you think that writing really wierd, step-by-step review, is a good idea.

Step Eight: Drink all the coffee.

This might require going outside and running the risk of interacting with hipsters, but as you have just read this book, you should be perfectly capable of preventing their hipster wiles from causing you to grow a handle-bar mustache and dressing like a rich homeless dude.

(disclaimer: I do not actually know if hipsters do these things, but I have been on tumblr, and I have seen things) #mywallismoresparklythanyourwall

Step Nine: Explain why you love/hate/feel completely indifferent and was so not crying, so you should just shut your stupid face and not lie. (circle all that apply)

This might sound easy because you just read the book and loved it, but the fact of the matter is that you might get stuck trying to find the words and even though you are absolutely in love with Gus and his asexual hipster lover, you cannot fully express those feelings without aslkjfalsdfjka;sfj all over the place.

But don’t worry, because you can always just say that finding a book with an asexual character in which the asexuality is such small part of the book was freaking awesome. Or how Gus nearly ripped your heart out every time he mentioned his father. Or that you now are secretly hunting the internet to see how one can go about acquiring a ferret and if said hypothetical ferret will get along with two rather taciturn cats.

You can say that you are amazed that every time you pick up a book by T.J. Klune the writing only gets better and better. Or that he puts so much into his characters that you are almost positive that he may have sold part of his soul to the fairies to get the power to bring fiction to life.

You can threaten to curse him so he will only ever make burnt brownies for the rest of his life if he does not write a sequel to this book because that ending was incredibly mean and doesn’t he feel sorry now that he has time to think about it?

There are lots of things you can say, but they all basically boil down to: Buy this damn book. (but just not from 4’7″ pirates who smell of lemon pledge and only have 5 teeth)

Step Ten: Try not to worry that you are actually a closet hipster

You probably aren’t. Maybe. Though you did kinda like Imagine Dragons before everyone else. And folk music is pretty damn good. Plus that dude with the glasses you saw last week when you went downtown and you ended up walking past like 6 gazillion coffee shops was kinda cute.

But don’t worry, you are probably not a hipster. Even if you totally just took a pic of your breakfast and tagged it #foodofthegods #awesomecook #feedthepoor #ironiceggs

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner

Amazon

ARe

 

*I previously published my reviews under the name Carissa. As I work to update my profile on Love Bytes, please be aware that posts may be found under either my old name or my new name–depending on when they were originally posted. Hopefully the change-over will not take long and everything will be easier to find at the end of this all.