A Story of Ordinary Family Life?
Title: Practicing Normal
Author: Cara Sue Achterberg
Release Date: June 6, 2017
Women’s Fiction- Family Life
Goodreads Link
Amazon Link
My claim to fame is that once upon a time best-selling author Cara Sue Achterberg nominated me for a Liebster Award. After I met her online through her blogs, I began to read her books. Here is my review of her first best-selling book, I’m Not Her.
Since our Liebster days I continue as a hopeful writer while Cara has written her third well-received novel. She has also published a nonfiction book, Live Intentionally. I am thrilled and honored to feature Cara, and her recently published book, Practicing Normal, one of my new favorites.
After you meet Cara, I invite you to please read on and join a “meeting” of my Book Club as we discuss Practicing Normal.
Cara Sue Achterberg is a novelist, blogger, dog rescuer, and mom who lives on a hillside farm in south central, PA. Her novels, I’m 
Not Her and Girls’ Weekend are national bestsellers, and her next novel, Practicing Normal, was released June 6, 2017. For more information and links to her blogs, visit www.CaraWrites.com.
Links/Social Media:
Facebook.com/carasueachterberg
The houses in Pine Estates are beautiful McMansions filled with high-achieving parents, children on the fast track to top colleges, all of the comforts of modern living, and the best security systems money can buy. Welcome to normal upper-middle-class suburbia.
Meet the Turners. 17-year-old Jenna dyes her hair black and breaks into her neighbors’ homes, security systems be damned. Everett genuinely believes he loves his wife . . . he just loves having a continuing stream of mistresses more. JT is a genius kid with Asperger’s who moves from one obsession to the next. And Kate tries to manage her children, her marriage and her mother (who lives down the street) while crafting the happy, normal life she’s always envisioned.
And now everything is changing for them. Jenna finds herself in a boy-next-door romance she never could have predicted. Everett’s secrets are beginning to unravel on him. JT is getting his first taste of success at navigating the world. And Kate is facing truths about her husband, her mother, and the father she never knew.
Life on Pine Road has never been more challenging for the Turners. That’s what happens when you’re practicing normal.
Combining her trademark combination of wit, insight, and tremendous empathy for her characters, Cara Sue Achterberg has written a novel that is at once familiar and startlingly fresh.
Released: June 6, 2017 in paperback, audiobook, and ebook
Also by Cara Sue Achterberg:
Girls’ Weekend – paperback, ebook, and audiobook wherever books are sold
I’m Not Her – paperback and ebook wherever books are sold
Live Intentionally – paperback and ebook exclusively through Amazon
For more information and buy links (plus lots of pictures of Cara’s foster dogs), stop by CaraWrites.com
Tweet ThisThis month our Book Club read Practicing Normal by Cara Sue Achterberg. The Book Club consists of me, my books characters Charli, Sibby and Nikki, and my dog Oakley.
Me: “Hi everybody. Does everyone have their beverage of choice? Isn’t it nice that we can sit outside tonight? Ready to get started?”
Nikki: “Ooohhh, Sibby has a cosmo, and it looks scrumptious.”
Sibby: “Here, have a sip! Do you want me to make you one?”
Me: “Do I have to glare at you two?”
Sibby and Nikki: “No. We’re ready.”
Oakley rolls over and stretches.
Me: “Overall, how did you like the book?”
Everyone: “Fast-paced, all the characters were intriguing, a page-turner, couldn’t stop reading it.”
Me: “I agree. And there is plenty to discuss. Let’s start with the cover and the title. When I first read the title, my immediate thought was, if you have to practice normal, this can’t be good!”
Charli: “Practicing Normal reminds me of a quote that has been attributed to many people…”
Nikki: (interrupts) “Charli, you’re not going to go on and on again about ‘Pressing On’ are you?
Charli: “Well, you’re right, that saying might also apply, but I was GOING TO SAY it reminded me of ‘Life is not a dress rehearsal.’ There’s no practice- this is it.”
Sibby: “I kinda like that.”
Nikki: “Your cosmo? Can I have another sip?”
Oakley: yawns and rolls over
Sibby: I liked the photo of the front door on the cover. It intrigued me and made me want to open the door, step in and find out what was going on.”
Me: “Good points everyone. So, there are plenty of characters to think about. Who was your favorite?
Everyone: “Jenna!”
Me: Well, I guess that the teenaged-daughter is the favorite. Why?”
Nikki: “Speaking from experience with teenage girls, I liked her spunk and her clear way of seeing things and oh- she doesn’t practice normal, she just lives.”
Me: “Well said Nikki. (Nikki smiles and nudges Sibby.)
Me: “Ok, now who did we love to hate? Who was your least favorite character?”
Sibby: “Everett!”
Nikki: “Evelyn!”
Me: “Kate!”
Sibby: “Why did you not like Kate the wife? She had so much to do. Yes, she was a bit lost but she tried!”
Me: “She seemed so clueless and fretful to me. Weak. By the way, we mentioned Everett and Evelyn. Did you notice that the 2 people who caused Kate the most trouble, her husband and sister, had very similar names? Does that mean anything?”
Charli: “Ok now you sound like the weird kids in Honors English going down some rabbit hole of trying to find the meaning. Just enjoy the book! It’s an engrossing read!”
Nikki: “Charli said gross.”
Oakley: rolls on her back so Sibby can rub her belly
Me: “Ok, well…I guess you don’t want to hear about the symbolism I found in Everett’s profession of Security Systems? Right. Let’s tell a favorite quote or part of the book.”
Sibby: “I got teary-eyed when grandma Mildred talked to the birds at her feeders and had names, like Philip for each of them.”
Nikki: “I liked how Jenna was so nice to her brother JT who had Asperger’s. She treated him like a real person, which I guess makes sense since Jenna was pretty real about everything.”
Me: “I liked how Kate had to be so cautious and could only cook with recipes and instructions. I wonder if that’s what she wanted for her own life- the directions all written out for her?”
Charli: “Oh, my gosh, there you go again. It’s an engaging read with some quirky characters, laughter, tears, and love. It’s about family life, not a Ph.D. thesis.
Me: “Sometimes I think you are the quirky one Charli. Ok. I am going to share my favorite quote and then we can pause and get some more libations and snacks. But, please stick around- I have a surprise for you. Here’s my favorite quote.”
“Your delusion that just because someone says they love you that means that they do.”
“How else would you know?”
“They show you.”
Nikki: “That was a good quote. Sibby, are you making another cosmos? Make one for me, too, please?
Sibby: “Sure. Jena, do you want one?”
Me: “Not right now. I’m going to feed the dog.”
Later…I call the group back to the patio…
Me: “Ladies, here’s my surprise. As I prepared for this meeting, I decided to contact the author Cara Sue Achterberg. I found her on Facebook a while ago. She blogs about her rescue dogs and puppies- that’s how I first learned about her. Then when I realized she was an author, I checked out her books. And that’s why I suggested that we read Practicing Normal. She’s really cool!
Nikki: “Is there a point to all this?”
Me: “Here’s the point. As I was preparing for Book Club I sent her some questions about the book a few days ago and she messaged me back. Ok, here’s what she wrote. I printed it so you can read it. Here you go.”
I distribute the papers… and we read my questions and Cara’s answers.
1. I really like your cover. Please share why you chose the close-up of the door, handle and key.
Actually, that image was chosen by my editor at The Story Plant. I’d suggested a backdoor, but when he came up with that one it seemed perfect. I like the idea of the key in the lock and the glimpse into the house – giving the reader a peek into a fancy house and what might or might not be happening in there. The books touch a bit on the assumptions we make about our own neighbors, even though we can’t possibly know.
2. I know the Book Club will want to discuss the characters. Do you have a favorite or a least liked character?
I absolutely love JT. I had to do quite a bit of research to learn about Asperger’s to get to know JT. I wanted to be sure I got him right, so I found two moms and one grandmom of boys the same age as JT who have Asperger’s and gave them my manuscript to read, long before it even went to the publisher. He was too important for me to get wrong. I don’t write sequels, but I’m tempted to revisit JT at some point.
I also really liked Cassie. In researching her character, I read several first-person books about hospice. What a humongous heart it requires, but also a practicality that few of us have. She’s another character I’m tempted to come back to someday. She taught me a few things.
And of course, I loved Jenna. She’s my kind of girl.
Wells’ sister Tiffany annoyed me as well as Evelyn (Kate’s sister). I’ve heard from plenty of people who dislike Everett, and there isn’t much to like there, but I did find slivers of decency and even love in him. His biggest fault is being selfish, which we all are, but he seems to have made it an art form. Mildred, I simply felt sorry for. She missed out on her own life because of her rigid view of the world.
3. At the end of the book several of the characters reflect on what normal is. What does normal or practicing normal mean to you?
Normal is incredibly relative, but the idea of normal can also be dangerous. I’ve never wanted to be normal, and deep inside I doubt any of us do, yet it’s the standard by which we judge each other. People and lives that are outside society’s view of “normal” have a history of being pushed aside and discounted.
‘Normal’ is constantly evolving, which is probably a good thing. I think often the people who feel too normal wish they could be less normal and those who see themselves as not normal wish they were normal. Maybe it’s a grass is always greener issue. Personally, I think we all have our own normal. And that’s okay.
For me, ‘practicing normal’ is just getting through the things you have to do – even the stuff you don’t want to do or the parts that are painful. Just the other day, a friend was having a tough day and when I asked how it was going, she said, “Crappy, but you know, I’m just practicing normal. It’s nothing terrible.” I loved that! When Cassie talks about loving people even when you don’t feel like it, that’s practicing normal to me.
4. And of course, how are your puppies?!?!
Ha! Right now, I’m between litters. We are fostering a single puppy named Dug. He’s 4 months old and desperately needed to get out of the shelter. He’s skinny and sick and scared, but he’s perking up more every day. I’m hoping that by the time your review comes out, he’ll be in his new forever home and I’ll have a new litter, but anyone can check in on us by visiting my blog, AnotherGoodDog.wordpress.com.
Everyone: That was really fun to learn more about the book from the author herself!
Me: “I know, she was so generous with her thoughts. Time for stars!
Nikki: “I’m a rocket scientist!”
Me: You are indeed Nikki but how many stars for Practicing Normal?
Everyone: “FIVE! Five stars”
Me: “Well that was easy. We highly recommend this book!”
About the Author
