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Title: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Author: Jeanette Winterson

Narrator: Jeanette Winterson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-12-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 40 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Personal Memoirs

Publisher's Summary:

When Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, left home at 16 because she was in love with a woman, Mrs. Winterson asked her: "Why be happy when you could be normal?" This book is the story of a life's work to find happiness. It is the story of how the painful past returned to haunt Jeanette's later life, and send her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her real mother. It is also a book about other people's stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life raft which supports us when we are sinking.

Members Reviews:

Sharing her story

Would you consider the audio edition of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? to be better than the print version?

the audio version is better for me as I am dyslexic and having an audio version brings books to me I would otherwise find difficult to read

What did you like best about this story?

that she was sharing her story

Have you listened to any of Jeanette Wintersons other performances before? How does this one compare?

no - I would love to hear oranges but you do not have it available

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

laugh and cry - made me appreaciate my family

Any additional comments?

would love to listen to the book she refered to Oranges are not the only fruit

Lucky and loved at the end!

Great to read and at the same time listening to the voice of Jeanette. Always nice if writers tell the story themselves.

Superb

Would you listen to Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? again? Why?

I actually listened to this twice and read the book in paperback. Enormous Jeanette Winterson fan and to have her reading it was just the most wonderful treat.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It was short enough I knocked it over in a couple of sittings.

An emotional roller coaster ....

What would have made Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? better?

I was really excited when WBHWYCBN was selected for the Book Club because I truly loved the title. They say you do judge a book by its cover so me I was onto the book before even started it. The book title really resonates with me. The while reading I find out how hard it was, how complex it was!

To pin down what this book was even exactly about is difficult in itself. So its a book about Jeanette Wintersons adopted mother, and then her eventual search to find her biological one. Sure. But its also about a million other things. I was even unable to ask basics questions about : Which themes struck me the most? Mrs. Winterson and her exorcism and book burning? English Literature A-Z and the power it gave Jeanette? The lost loss of adoption? Or the countless meditations on love, love, love giving it, receiving it, deserving it?

Then I decided to relax and take this story as her journey to understanding herself, where she came from, with Mrs. Winterson as the main antagonist. To me, the most hopeful thing about the book is how with time Jeanette came to understand Mrs. Winterson (and her father), and, by extension, herself.

Jeanette Winterson's style threw me a couple of times. This book is written in a style I don't particularly like. Sometimes I liked but then the next page could just throw me again. I do understand the complicated mess that is the relationship with Mrs.