NORMAL SUCKS

In NORMAL SUCKS, Mooney critics our conception of normalcy, and puts forth the radical message that we should stop trying to fix people and instead start empowering them to succeed. Laced with humor and framed as a letter to his own young sons, this book will inspire and open our outlook.

Blending anecdotes, expertise and memoir, NORMAL SUCKS explores the toll that having a neurological or physical disability takes on kids when they're trapped in environments that label them, shame them, and tell them, even in subtle ways, that they are the problem. Mooney knows firsthand just how badly the system is rigged against those who aren't considered ‘normal'—he lived it himself—but his journey is also full of realizations that saved his life and fundamentally changed his outlook on himself and others. Thanks to those experiences, he figured out how to thrive. He has been inspiring kids and parents with his story and his message for seventeen years, on the road like a barnstorming preacher with an irresistible message. Now he's ready to give that wisdom out to a wider world in a book that is as much a survival guide as it is a manifesto and a call to action. Funny, incisive, and above all inspiring, NORMAL SUCKS urges all of us to stop trying to fix ourselves or those we love and focus on fighting discrimination and empowering everyone to succeed.

Jonathan Mooney graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in English. A recipient of the Truman Fellowship for graduate study in creative writing and disability studies, his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, HBO, NPR, ABC News, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, and he continues to speak across the nation about neurological and physical diversity, inspiring those who live with differences and advocating for change. His previous book, The Short Bus, has sold over 80,000 copies to date, and his first book, Learning Outside the Lines, has sold over 100,000 copies and is in its 29th printing.