The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman

This has everything a good feel book should have and ticks all the boxes. Compassionate, endearing, touching but absolutely hilarious. The pickles Norman gets into on his journey to Edinburgh had me in giggles. All I will say is revolving door and tumble dryer!!!I adored every page and wanted to savour every word as I did not want this emotional journey to end but I couldn’t put it down so was read in one sitting. A story filled with love, determination and human connection that will definitely pull on your heart strings but having you laugh out loud the next.I am missing Norman already and is most deservedly in my top favourites of year ❤️ Fans of The Secret Life Of Albert Entwistle, One Ordinary Day At A Time, Dog Days and The Authenticity Project will love this hug in a book.Thank you Julietta for writing something so wonderful

Norman Foreman is nearly 12 and him and his best friend Jax aim to perform at the Fringe festival as a comedy double act, unfortunately Jax dies and so Norman makes a new plan to perform on his own, even more unfortunately Norman isn't really that funny on his own. Oh and he also wants to find out who his dad is.Sadies, Normans Mum wants to help her son get to Edinburgh, she doesn't particularly want to help find his dad, mainly because she doesn't know who it is and it could be one of many men she had dalliances with.This book was laugh out loud funny, but also poignant in places too. Told in alternating chapters between Norman and Sadie we follow them on this journey. Norman was a great character, brave and lovely and Sadie was just hilarious. The characters they meet on their journey just had my heart melting and I had a smile on my face the whole way through.I would highly recommend this one, but there is a trigger warning for suicide

Norman Foreman is twelve years old - a scrawny, nerdy kid covered in psoriasis who has no idea who his Dad is and who's constantly worried about his fragile, hard-working single Mum. But that's all right, because he has this wonderful, funny, confident, loyal friend - local bad boy Jax, who thinks not having a Dad is cool, and who's convinced that he and Norman are 'the bee's knees and the dog's bollocks' as a comedy duo, and that they're going to make it big at the Edinburgh Festival just as soon as they turn fifteen.At least, that's how it used to be, before Jax's asthma killed him. Now, traumatised, bereft and lonely, Norman wants to do something to celebrate his best friend's memory and make him proud - even if that something is as impossible as performing in Edinburgh all by himself at just twelve years of age.His loyal Mum Sadie and her OAP friend Leonard are determined to make Norman's dream come true somehow; but there's another vital ingredient in the mix - while they're in Edinburgh, city of his conception, Norman wants to find out once and for all who his Dad is. No pressure, then, Sadie; there's still a fortnight to go before the Festival opens ...Told alternately from Norman's and Sadie's point of view, this hilarious, heart-breaking story will have you enthralled from beginning to end.

I found this book rather tedious and laborious to read. Every sentence attempts humour, which I quickly grew tired of, especially as I didn't find much of it all that funny. Many sentences in the book are also long and convoluted to become almost unreadable. Sadie's endless self-deprecation at being a bad mother wore thin pretty quickly. And the ending was something straight out of a naff romcom – highly ridiculous. Which is all a bit of a shame as Norman was an interesting character and the relationship between him and his dead best friend was also well portrayed.

This is a lovely and charming novel which centres on three main characters who each help the eponymous Norman, who is a sickly twelve year old bot who loves comedy and desires to star in his own one man stand up show.Norman has not had an easy life and he must shake off the issues that try and hold him down while he reaches for the stars.The main characters in this book are believable and strong but they provide comical moments which make the reader smile while reasing A lovely and charming book which gets four out of five stars from me.