We Are Totally Normal

Gr 10 Up–High school senior Nandan, who is of South Asian descent, broke up with his perfect girlfriend, Avani, because being around her made him too anxious. He struggles with feeling like everyone around him is brighter and more interesting than he is, and that all of his specialness is by association only. When he befriends quiet, bow tie–wearing Dave, Nandan immediately turns him into a project—he will help Dave figure out how to hook up with Mari, his supposed crush. Instead, Nandan and Dave hook up and Nandan must struggle with how, or whether, to define his sexuality. This is not a typical coming-out narrative: Nandan worries that his coming out may be a form of attention-seeking to please his diverse friend group, who think it’s cool to be queer. Nandan is deeply selfish and spends most of his time obsessing over the minute intricacies of his friend group’s social dynamics. Everyone is using everyone else, and his male friends frequently make sexist comments and approach girls as conquests rather than as people. All of this makes the reading experience tedious, although teens are likely to find the narrative realistic. The most interesting parts of the book deal with Nandan’s conflicted feelings about masculinity and gendered friendships, as he struggles to understand the power dynamics among his male friends and longs for close platonic friendships with girls.