Review: A Different Sort Of Normal by Abigail Balfe

“Abigail’s book is a precious gift”

My daughter and I are frequent flyers at our local library. We have been told repeatedly about the digital service whereby we can ‘borrow’ e-books and even audiobooks for free. Alas my chaotic ADHD (and probably slightly demand avoidant) brain took a good six months before I actually downloaded the ‘BorrowBox’ app.

I’m a parent with neurodivergent children and I too am autistic and have ADHD. My youngest daughter is home educated and we spend quite a bit of time on trips here and there. The car is prime brain-dump time for my nine year old and honestly some of the most enriching and deep conversations we have, occur within those four wheels. Some days my mind is too overwhelmed (or concentrating on travelling somewhere new) to field the torrent of queries she fires at me. On this particular day, I had the light bulb moment to put on something from the library.

We embarked on our first audiobook together and it was ‘A Different Sort Of Normal’ by Abigail Balfe. The opening lines fall into a beautiful eighteen verse introduction poem ‘This is for the souls, who never quite fit in, the odd ones out, the misfits, told to grow a thicker skin’ narrated by Abigail herself. We were both nodding along and both related to her words, from alien, extroverts, introverts, clever kids, forgotten youths, daughters, sons, fathers, mothers, teenagers, atypical beings, extraordinary minds to everyone and anyone. A warm sense of belonging began to glow from our knowing smiles.

Abigail’s voice was soothing, friendly, enchanting and funny. She had the ability to make my daughter feel seen and to ground her. Not only that but capture her full attention, which is no mean feat as she has a very, very busy mind. The car was quiet bar the odd smile, nod or ‘that’s me’ from my daughter or a giggle and ‘that’s you mum’.

Although Abigail is an adult, the book has been written in a beautifully digestible way for children. A memoir of sorts that follows Abigail’s autistic life from childhood. It covers topics from emotions, family, sensory sensitivities, friendships, big school, puberty and more. It is possibly one of the most empowering things I have introduced my daughter to. By the end of the book (it took a few car rides to finish) we were part of a new club together. We are a very neurodivergent household and frequently converse openly about autism and ADHD but Abigail’s story opened up so much more in my daughter’s understanding of herself. I guess hearing it all from someone else, a real life famous author was another crucial validation stamp that being different isn’t a bad thing.

Now fully fledged members of Abigail’s ‘Unique’ club, I bought my daughter a paperback copy to keep. The physical book did not disappoint! Abigail mentions her illustrations in the audiobook so I was prepared for some visuals. For those of you with children who connect with any Dav Pilkey books, you’ll know what I mean when I say the fun, comic-book-esque way Abigail lays out her story is great for ADHDers. There is such a wealth of knowledge and information throughout and it is kept humorous and light-hearted with colourful and eye-catching pages.

My daughter has ear-marked several sections and even loaned the book to friends in a ‘here, this is me’ kind of way. Autistics often describe their experience as feeling like they missed out on being given the guide on how to human. My daughter, now ironically, has a handbook on what it is like to live inside her mind. For a child who has been highly anxious from such a young age, who also struggled putting words to feelings (alexithymia), Abigail’s book is a very precious gift that I cannot recommend highly enough.

“In this book I loved… well I loved all of it and the illustrations are really good. How she used the words in her sentences, the story made me feel so joyful and it was so interesting but funny too, just because how relatable it is. I learned a lot from Abigail’s book and I recommended it to a lot of my friends and they loved it too, like I do.”

- M, aged 9

If you would like to join the ‘Unique’ club and read A Different Sort Of Normal by Abigail Balfe, we have an Amazon affiliate link for you here.

This means we take a small amount of the proceeds from a sale which we use to further our training on neurodiversity; to keep our blog running and to create free resources, like posters, for those who need them.