Overview

All her life Francesca just wanted to be like everyone else: normal. After overcoming a childhood of adversity, her life looks ideal: stable marriage, kids, a good job. But when learning her youngest child is transgender, Francesca discovers that she is not just normal, she extraordinary. The author hopes this story about her journey of discovery will reassure and inspire others who feel like they just don't fit into the roles that our society sometimes imposes on us.

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9781962702003

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Reviews

In No Hope for Normal, Francesca Borella's heartfelt, self-deprecating and often humorous memoir, the journey of self-discovery begins in a place of severe anger and frustration; as the book opens, Borella learns that her youngest child has realized they are trans and want to commence hormone therapy. Told in flashback vignettes, the book makes the reader Borella's willing travel companion on an alternatingly heartrending and comical quest for ""normal."" Readers will come along on a variety of adventures, ranging from baton twirling tryouts and a trip to the Emmy awards to the far-flung locales of Madagascar and Brazil, all with children, and a series of love-interests and husbands. Throughout, Borella uses her keen insights as a career anthropologist to makes sense of her own life and choices. Culminating in her experience at a Native American sweat lodge, Borella's book shows us that when we give up on normal, we can have relationships of true worth and sweetness. A generous and thoughtful book that will appeal to anyone trying and failing to ""be like everyone else."" Stephanie Barbé Hammer, author of Journey to Merveilleux City and Pretend Plumber What young person has not wished to be normal, and accepted by other teens? Even as adolescents rebel in their music, clothing, and slang, they are in fact copying one another and donning a uniform and persona that is approved by their peers. Francesca Borella was no different in her striving to fit into her community and schools. But coming from a family marked by divorce, poverty, alcohol abuse, and even the involvement of Child Protective Services made ""normal"" an impossibility. So, as an adult, she dedicated herself to acquiring all the trappings of the American Dream-higher education, a nice home, and a traditional marriage and family. But life had other plans, and this honest memoir movingly chronicles Francesca's journey to accept and even celebrate the ways in which her life would never be ordinary. Lynda Smith Hoggan, author of Our Song: a Memoir of Love and Race The open spirit of Francesca Borella's voice matters in an historical moment when too many Americans justify terrible cruelty in the name of ""normalcy."" As mother to a trans child, Borella traces her own path to understanding as she explores her traumatic background, her struggles with relationships, her love for learning and discovery, and a deep longing to be free from the small-minded judgments of others. Jo Scott-Coe, author of Unheard Witness (UT Press)

Author Information

Francesca Borella is a biological anthropologist who lives with her family at the Black Widow Ranch in Riverside, California. After years of teaching college students and telling stories from her life, and with the many requests from students and friends, Francesca turned to memoir and poetry. This is her debut.

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