Books › Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? › Books like it
If you loved
Books like Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
A fierce, darkly funny, and deeply moving testament to surviving a suffocating childhood through the sheer power of literature and stubborn defiance. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?.
- intense
- claustrophobic
- raw
- expansive
- 01
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Jeanette Winterson · 1991
A fiercely witty, myth-infused rebellion against the suffocating confines of religious fundamentalism and compulsory heterosexuality.
- 02
How to be a woman
Caitlin Moran
A riotous, unapologetic manifesto disguised as a memoir that makes you laugh out loud while dismantling the patriarchy.
- 03
Lighthousekeeping
Jeanette Winterson · 2005
An atmospheric, nested tale of isolation and connection, anchored by the mesmerizing power of shared stories in a windswept lighthouse.
- 04
The chronology of water
Lidia Yuknavitch
A raw, untraditional plunge into grief, fluid sexuality, and the fierce current of survival.
- 05
Running with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs
A hilariously horrifying plunge into a childhood where the adults are the lunatics and survival requires a razor-sharp sense of irony.
- 06
Gender outlaw
Kate Bornstein · 1994
A playful, mind-altering manifesto that invites you to completely dismantle everything you thought you knew about gender.
- 07
The cost of living
Deborah Levy
A vibrant, urgent reflection on dismantling the social hierarchies that diminish women, in pursuit of a life lived with meaning, pleasure, and ultimate freedom.
- 08
Fun Home
Alison Bechdel · 2006
A darkly funny, deeply literary graphic memoir that dissects the complicated legacy of a closeted parent and a daughter's own queer awakening.
- 09
Prozac nation
Elizabeth Wurtzel · 1994
A torrential, unapologetic plunge into the messy, chaotic reality of coming of age under the crushing weight of clinical depression.
- 10
The well of loneliness
Radclyffe Hall · 1928
A sweeping, melancholic tragedy of forbidden love and the agonizing search for a place in a world that demands conformity.
- 11
Surprised by Joy
C. S. Lewis · 1998
A brilliant, reluctant mind traces the breadcrumbs of an elusive, lifelong longing until it leads him to surrender.
- 12
A Queer and Pleasant Danger
Kate Bornstein
A wickedly funny, fiercely vulnerable memoir about surviving a cult, losing a family, and inventing a radically authentic gender-outlaw self.
