Confessional and often hilarious, in Normal Sucks a
neuro-diverse writer, advocate, and father meditates on his life,
offering the radical message that we should stop trying to fix people
and start empowering them to succeed
Jonathan Mooney blends anecdote, expertise, and memoir to present a
new mode of thinking about how we live and learn—individually,
uniquely, and with advantages and upshots to every type of brain and
body. As a neuro-diverse kid diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD who
didn't learn to read until he was twelve, the realization that that
he wasn’t the problem—the system and the concept of normal
were—saved Mooney’s life and fundamentally changed his outlook.
Here he explores the toll that being not normal takes on kids and
adults when they’re trapped in environments that label them, shame
them, and tell them, even in subtle ways, that they are the problem.
But, he argues, if we can reorient the ways in which we think about
diversity, abilities, and disabilities, we can start a revolution.
A highly sought
after public speaker, Mooney has been inspiring audiences with his
story and his message for nearly two decades. Now he’s ready to
share what he’s learned from parents, educators, researchers, and
kids in a book that is as much a survival guide as it is a call to
action. Whip-smart, insightful, and utterly inspiring—and movingly
framed as a letter to his own young sons, as they work to find their
ways in the world—this book will upend what we call normal and
empower us all.