The Other Normals

by Ned Vizzini Narrated by Andrew Eiden

Overview

Given the chance, fifteen-year-old Peregrine ""Perry"" Eckert would dedicate every waking moment to Creatures & Caverns, an epic role-playing game rich with magical creatures, spell casting, and deadly weapons. The world of C&C is where he feels most comfortable in his own skin. But that isn't happening-not if his parents have anything to do with it. Concerned their son lacks social skills, they ship him off to summer camp to become a man. They want him to be outdoors playing with kids his own age and meeting girls-rather than indoors alone, with only his gaming alter ego for company. Perry knows he's in for the worst summer of his life.

Everything changes, however, when Perry gets to camp and stumbles into the World of the Other Normals. There he meets Mortin Enaw, one of the creators of C&C, and other mythical creatures from the game, including the alluring Ada Ember, whom Perry finds more beautiful than any human girl he's ever met. Perry's new otherworldly friends need his help to save their princess and prevent mass violence. As they embark on their quest, Perry realizes that his nerdy childhood has uniquely prepared him to be a great warrior in this world, and maybe even a hero. But to save the princess, Perry will have to learn how to make real connections in the human world as well.

Bestselling author Ned Vizzini delivers a compulsively readable and wildly original story about the winding and often hilarious path to manhood.

Editorial Reviews

DECEMBER 2012 - AudioFile

Narrator Andrew Eiden’s performance is funny and understated. He delivers the occasional f-bomb without making it feel gratuitous, and, more importantly, his earnest voicing gives the story’s humor the perfect edge. Fifteen-year-old Perry is a role-playing game enthusiast and a late bloomer. Perry’s parents send him to summer camp in an effort to force him to stop role-playing and start blooming. At camp Perry works on his social skills, fights monsters in an alternate universe, and gets his first pubic hair. His role-playing skills always come in handy, except with girls. Throughout, Eiden is particularly adept at voicing believable female characters, a skill that is important in a book that centers around an emergence of heterosexuality. A.M.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review

Vizzini is gifted and keeps us engaged…he writes fiction that can be especially meaningful to a savvy, screen-bleary teenage readership. His sentences carry enough charge that an eighth grader might truly discover how a novel is not a movie made extremely cheaply, but an art form that brings its own unique splendors, including the power to explore interiority and consciousness.
—Sam Lipsyte

Publishers Weekly

In a departure from the realism of 2006’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Vizzini turns to fantasy with a twisted sendup of the alternate fantasy world genre. Fifteen-year-old Perry Eckert is obsessed with the D&D-style role-playing game Creatures & Caverns, to the point that his parents send him to summer camp to take a break from his obsession. There, Perry finds his way to the World of the Other Normals, a parallel world filled with fantasy creatures and danger. Flipping between worlds, Perry joins a band of stalwart rebels, embarks on a quest to save a lost princess, and tries to master his destiny. Sometimes funny, sometimes painfully awkward (Perry is so socially incompetent, he takes the stereotype of the nerdy, conversationally inept gamer to the extreme), this coming-of-age adventure captures the confusion and drama of adolescence. It lacks either the bite of satire or the earnestness of a more straightforward fantasy, leaving it somewhere in the middle, as out-of-place as Perry himself. Nevertheless, fans of surreal adventures like Libba Bray’s Going Bovine will appreciate the story’s odd appeal. Ages 13–up. Agent: Jay Mandel, William Morris Endeavor. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

With a deft sense of humor and a keen ear for funny and realistic teen dialogue, Vizzini explores one teen everyman’s quest to become a hero, one roll of the six-sided die at a time …. Great geeky fun.” — Kirkus Reviews

“[A] lighthearted yet bitingly funny fantasy … Through the protagonist’s incisive observations, rampant insecurities, and unapologetic embrace of nerd-culture, Vizzini depicts the teen male experience with authenticity and honesty.” — The Horn Book

“Perry is lovably awkward, and his goofy eagerness is offset by his bitingly funny observations…. Vizzini’s true strength is in authentically depicting the skills needed to survive growing up.” — ALA Booklist

“THE OTHER NORMALS is wildly imaginative, incredibly funny, and weirdly wise. I don’t know where Vizzini gets this stuff —it’s like he’s tapped into the collective unconscious of alienated adolescents everywhere.” — Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of THE MAGICIAN and THE MAGICIAN KING

“Vizzini has created a likable geek in Perry and an interesting alternate world that could easily be the setting for more adventures. This book will be enjoyed by readers open to something that straddles the line between fantasy and science fiction.” — School Library Journal

“A fast-paced coming-of-age story with a fascinating premise which, to the great credit of the author, is seamless and strangely believable.” — R.A. Salvatore, New York Times Bestselling author of CHARON'S CLAW and The Dark Elf Trilogy

Praise for IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY: “This book offers hope in a package that readers will find enticing, and that’s the gift it offers.” — Booklist (starred review)

Praise for IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY: “A well-paced narrative...filled with humor and pathos.” — School Library Journal

Praise for IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY: “This is an important book.” — New York Times Book Review

The Horn Book

[A] lighthearted yet bitingly funny fantasy … Through the protagonist’s incisive observations, rampant insecurities, and unapologetic embrace of nerd-culture, Vizzini depicts the teen male experience with authenticity and honesty.

Booklist (starred review)

Praise for IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY: “This book offers hope in a package that readers will find enticing, and that’s the gift it offers.

ALA Booklist

Perry is lovably awkward, and his goofy eagerness is offset by his bitingly funny observations…. Vizzini’s true strength is in authentically depicting the skills needed to survive growing up.

New York Times Book Review

Praise for IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY: “This is an important book.

Lev Grossman

THE OTHER NORMALS is wildly imaginative, incredibly funny, and weirdly wise. I don’t know where Vizzini gets this stuff —it’s like he’s tapped into the collective unconscious of alienated adolescents everywhere.

R.A. Salvatore

A fast-paced coming-of-age story with a fascinating premise which, to the great credit of the author, is seamless and strangely believable.

DECEMBER 2012 - AudioFile

Narrator Andrew Eiden’s performance is funny and understated. He delivers the occasional f-bomb without making it feel gratuitous, and, more importantly, his earnest voicing gives the story’s humor the perfect edge. Fifteen-year-old Perry is a role-playing game enthusiast and a late bloomer. Perry’s parents send him to summer camp in an effort to force him to stop role-playing and start blooming. At camp Perry works on his social skills, fights monsters in an alternate universe, and gets his first pubic hair. His role-playing skills always come in handy, except with girls. Throughout, Eiden is particularly adept at voicing believable female characters, a skill that is important in a book that centers around an emergence of heterosexuality. A.M.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

A shy role-playing-game aficionado finds slaying monsters easier than kissing a girl in this appealing adventure by the author of It's Kind of a Funny Story (2006). In a desperate attempt to make him socialize, 15-year-old Perry's parents take away his RPG books and send him to Camp Washiska Lake for the summer. Perry mopes until he accidentally discovers a portal to the World of the Other Normals, where each creature there corresponds to one on Earth. He falls in with a group of quirky characters (including a sexy blue-haired elf) and learns that they need him to kiss a girl back at camp in order to set in motion a chain of events that will end up freeing her correspondent, the kidnapped princess of their world. Perry's game, but the real and imagined obstacles in both dimensions will put all his nerd skillz to the test. With a deft sense of humor and a keen ear for funny and realistic teen dialogue, Vizzini explores one teen everyman's quest to become a hero, one roll of the six-sided die at a time. Though the world building is thin at times, there are some moments of genuine pathos and terror, with the final climactic fight scene leaving plenty of room for sequels. Great geeky fun. (Fantasy. 13 & up)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173433640
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/25/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

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