Am I Normal Yet?

Nefarious Tales Blog Tour: Do we actually need villains in books?

07:30

There’s no denying that often, villains can be the most interesting and readable character in a book. Although being sometimes frustrating by getting in the hero’s way, I think a well crafted villain can really make or break a book. Specifically in fantasy, there’s often a bad guy who doesn’t want to help our hero in their journey. But are villains critical for every book?

 A boring villain doesn't emotional impact. If they come across as cold and heartless (for pretty much no specific reason), their mere existence in the book can be pointless. Like, if they just hate the ‘right cause’, there seems to be no point in them, and it gets frustrating. Personally, if I’m not able to resonate with the villain, I can’t hate them or understand them, as they’re just too dull.

 However, this tends to just be in fantasy or sci-fi books. In fantasy especially, the hero has to go on a journey, and the bad guy is standing in their way. In these genres, I think we definitely do need something to hinder them on their journey. If it was easy with no one standing in their, it would make a pretty boring book!

 Could a mental hurdle work too? I haven’t read any books like this, but I’m thinking that the character could have something else that gets in their way - not a specific person or group of people. The hero could have a mental illness which they need to overcome (yay diversity ideas!), which would make a very interesting fantasy novel. Maybe depression could be the villain?

 This is explored a lot more in contemporary novels. Although there can be someone who is getting in the way of the protagonist, mental boundaries are explored a lot more. One of my favourite books exploring these themes is Am I Normal Yet? By Holly Bourne. The protagonist, Evie, is recovering from OCD, and just starting college. Her mental illnesses are great boundaries for her, because she it restricts her and can’t live her life ‘normally’. This book is so important because it’s about overcoming mental struggles. In this book, there is no villain, except her OCD.

 This leads on to saying: instead of a physical villain, could the protagonist be their own villain. There’s the saying “you’re your own worst enemy”, and maybe that could be the case (and in more books than we think) for some books. At some point in their life, everyone suffers from low self esteem, which can be so much worse than any villain from any book.

 So overall, it seems like many fantasy books do have villains, even if they’re not necessarily needed. I think maybe we do need some sort of bad thing/person the protagonist has to overcome, but it doesn’t have to be a physical person, even though that’s what it tends to be. It would make interesting variety for the protagonist to be facing mental demons though! 


To celebrate this blog tour, Mishma is hosting an international giveaway! Enter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

Don't forget to check out all the other stops on the blog tour! Today, you can visit:
Quality Fangirls
Paging Serenity
Chasing Faerytales to check out the other posts on the tour from today!!

Don't forget to join in the twitter chat tonight (7pm EST) about villains too.


Thank you to Mishma for hosting this blog tour! So, it's your turn: do you think we actually need villains in books?

4 stars

Review: Am I Normal Yet?

18:20

Am I Normal Yet?
By Holly Bourne

 Source: e-book
Page count: 434
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Romance, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list...

 But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amber and Lottie the truth about herself, how will she cope when she falls in love?

 My review:
As soon as I heard that Holly Bourne had a new book coming out, I knew I had to have it. I pre-ordered it on my kindle, and even payed for wifi when I knew I was going to be away (it wouldn’t deliver until I was connected to the internet). I think it’s fair to say that I anticipated this book to be amazing!
Thankfully it was everything I hoped it to be. Not only was it a harshly accurate representation of mental-illness, it had themes of friendships and loyalty, which made the book for me. It made the book lighter (and less intense), so I was able to enjoy it much more.

The thing that let the book down for me were the bits on feminism. Not only were they unrealistic (what group of friends randomly starts talking about all these issues?), the ideas discussed were unoriginal. The reason I feel this way may be because of the strong opinions from Tumblr, so I’m open to new ideas that most people haven’t thought about. Though I am still very pleased to see an author include this (more than any book I’ve read before), I would have preferred for them to be more daring and that pushes more boundaries - things I’ve never even thought about before.


Evie’s mental illness and the parts about OCD made this book more original. All other books I’ve read about mental illness glossed over the gritty parts, only to focus on romance or something that readers would be ‘more interested in’. This book definitely did not do that. It exposed the reality of OCD, and was dealt with extremely well. It is a real eye-opener, so I’d recommend this book to everyone who doesn’t have much experience in the topic.

I already liked Holly Bourne as a writer, and this book has just made me love her even more. All of her books are on very important issues, so teach me something from reading them (but not in an annoying school-book way). Not only are they enjoyable, they tackle important and relevant issues, and I recommend her to everyone (especially this book).

 My rating: