Like Normal People

Written by Karen E. Bender

Narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan

A tour de force of literary craft and emotional resonance, Like Normal People charts a family constellation that revolves around an off-kilter center: Lena, who is forty-eight but mentally locked in childhood. Moving deftly between present and past, the novel follows Lena's day-long escape from her residential home with her troubled twelve-year-old niece. While this odd couple takes refuge on a honky-tonk southern California beach, Lena's widowed mother, Ella, goes in search of them. In the process, Ella relives her own life's dreams and disappointments: her marriage to a sweet, loving shoe salesman; her discovery of Lena's handicap and her aching attempts to give her daughter a "normal" childhood. For so long, Lena has been the focus of Ella's world. When Lena at last finds approximate normalcy - by marrying a man much like herself - Ella must contend with letting her daughter go. Covering three entire lifetimes in the course of one day, Like Normal People is tender, often hilarious, and deeply moving. Bender brilliantly enters into the consciousness of three women at very different stages of life, each on a private search for love and acceptance. Like Normal People is a novel about desire, about what constitutes normality, and, most poignantly, about the ways in which a family finds its strength in the face of adversity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781501924033

Reviews for Like Normal People

[c_why · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Interesting premise. Adequate structure to hang the story on. Writing - uninspired - needed to be braver and go into each character's heart more deeply.. I am the mother of a 43 year old developmentally challenged daughter - in a group home Mon. - Friday. She has two younger sisters. I'm always interested in reading books (fact or fiction) on this topic because there are relatively few of us from way back then. Although I realize this book was set about a generation before I became a mother -- and yes, mothers really were often superficial, emotionally confused & vacant back then -- still it was very difficult for me to relate to Ella (the mother) andt to her relationship to her husband.I did appreciate Lena's little world and her determination to stand her ground and do things her way. Her focus on taking the little children home, and her love of animals was sweet and true. Her shopping sprees were convincing, as was her general confusion at the beach and about her husband's absence. By the way, how could someone like Bob get a commercial driver's license!?There were some very humourous and believable bits: the dance at the charm school, the dinner party was great. The grandchild Shelley was well depicted, as she gradually realized that she, not Aunt Lena, was the adult. The ending was well done, which left me more caught up in this book than it really warrented.