Finding Normal, Alexa TsoulisReay
Finding Normal, Alexa TsoulisReay
2 Rating(s)
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Finding Normal
Sex, Love, and Taboo in Our Hyperconnected World

Author: Alexa Tsoulis-Reay

Narrator: Kate Handford

Unabridged: 9 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/25/2022


Synopsis

Alexa Tsoulis-Reay's Finding Normal is an author's up close tour of people who are using the Internet to challenge the boundaries of what's taboo and what it means to be normal.

Finding Normal explores how people are using the internet to find community, forge connections, and create identity in ways that challenge a variety of sexual norms. Based on a highly candid interview series conducted for New York magazine's human science column—"What It's Like"—each story in Finding Normal intimately immerses the reader in the world of a person who is grappling with a unique set of circumstances relating to sexuality.

Finding Normal at once celebrates the power of our evolving media landscape for helping people rewrite the script for their lives and offers a warning about the danger of that seemingly limitless freedom. Tsoulis-Reay shows the enduring power of the search for belonging—for humans and society. Like happiness of life purpose, finding normal is perhaps the definitive human struggle.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

About Alexa Tsoulis-Reay

ALEXA TSOULIS-REAY grew up in New Zealand. She spent her adult years living in various countries, with graduate degrees in media theory and working a range of jobs: an investigator for a pornography regulator, a complaints officer at a taxi cab regulator, a recruitment consultant, and a mystery shopper. After graduating from New York University’s journalism program, she worked as a fact checker at New York magazine, eventually becoming a senior writer. She lives in Australia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Cari on May 24, 2021

I feel weird being the first person to review this, but I can't lie - I saw it pop on Edelweiss and immediately read the whole thing. I am really interested in stories about people who defy the norm, and I appreciated that Tsoulis-Reay deconstructed what normal is and why it exists. The stories in t......more

Goodreads review by Lindsey on January 25, 2022

Even though this book has the words “taboo” and “sex” in the title, it is far from salacious. Rather, it’s an exploration of how complex humanity is. The first three chapters explore consensual non monogamy, age gap relationships and asexuality. The author does a wonderful job exploring the studies......more

Goodreads review by maddie (thenmaddieread) on February 07, 2022

CW: sexual activity, non-monogamy, incest, bestiality This book is grounded in a series of columns the author wrote for New York Magazine exploring human behavior, particularly people in unconventional, uncommon, or taboo sexual or romantic relationships. Tsoulis-Reay expands on those columns, someti......more

Goodreads review by Vanessa on March 11, 2022

I do appreciate that the author prefaces the whole book by saying that she is not equating the topics she discusses in various chapters as having the same gravity or the same moral standing. That would have been my biggest gripe, had she not explicitly said that that was not her intent. I enjoyed th......more

Goodreads review by Stella on July 07, 2022

Feeling very mixed…more like a 4 for content in the first three topics, a 3 for the first controversial chapter, and a 1 for the very bizarre last chapter. Landing at three because the writing did hook me and and I was eager to open back up this audiobook at every opportunity to see what came next.......more