A very emotional story that was well written. I was very moved by several sections of the book, on the point of choking back tears.

The positives are the love this father and mother have for their son and their ideas about letting him grow up to be who he is and proud of and happy with himself are fantastic. Several key issues were explored in ways I hadn't seen discussed before and with a depth and modernness that made this book very relevant and refreshing.

I was happy that not too much time was spent on the opposing viewpoints, which can fill and overwhelm this kind of story, just read a book by Dan Savage. The story here is not close-minded people but dealing with a gay teen in a modern concept, in a post-Matthew Sheppard world, what does that look like now?

Another thing that made this very special was that the father cared enough to write the book, it wasn't the son writing this 10 years from now. That the father cared enough to find out all this back story is very moving.

That being said, the book does derail a tiny bit in the second half. The statistics become overwhelming and the American-centric viewpoint can be tiring when you live in a country that has had gay marriage for 10 years. Also the medical jargon and diagnoses of the son seemed to be just perfect in the first half and I loved the factual interludes, but in the second half I lost the ability to follow along as the talk of the spectrum and the final diagnosis, whatever it was, were going on and on.

This is a book that was waiting to be written and it was done well. I had never heard of the minority stress ideas previously and it's a fantastic, well presented concept.

I had some quotes:

"...it’s natural for effeminate kids to butch up a bit as they become conscious of the ways and attitudes of those around them. But further research suggests that hiding that side of themselves can come at a high price."

""if they believe that [negative attitudes about gays] and thought, Well, this is what is in my future.”
These anguished feelings, he said, impinge upon our sense of what is known as the “possible self”—our imagined future, our mental construct of the possibilities ahead. “The possible self is not only important because of how it projects to the future and how it maybe helps a person think about the future,” he explained. “It is also related to what people feel right now” about themselves.""

"The parents [at PFLAG] referred to the moment of coming out as a statement of something fundamental, using phrases like, “He told me who he was.” Not that he told them what his sexual orientation was, or how to classify him in the taxonomy of sexual types. This was identity, something at the core."

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

“I feel like the school would rather he had autism than be gay,” she said. “They seem more comfortable with the concept of autism, which they understand how to deal with.”

"They [parents] don’t like to think about kids having sex... Even though people have a sexual orientation long before they have sex, he said, society tends to conflate the two."

"He was a young boy who was quite normal in many ways, but quite odd in other ways. Most people are, you will find."

I liked this memoir about raising a non-conformist child. John Swartz and his wife, Jeanne, knew early on that their third child, Joseph, was somehow different. Their older children, a daughter and a son, were following fairly 'standard' paths of American childhood. Joseph wasn't. They knew, based on Joseph's interests and behavior, that there was a high probability he was gay. Joseph was clearly very intelligent but he struggled in school and in many social settings. Was it somehow because he could sense he was different from other boys or was something else going on? In alternating chapters, Swartz tells their family's story and shares all he and his wife learned along the often bumpy path of raising Joseph. This is not a how-to manual but a heartfelt, very direct, family story. I think it would be a good read for anybody raising a child who struggles with 'fitting in.'

3 stars= liked it. I chose this book for my book club option in a multicultural education class because it's on a topic that I'm pretty uneducated about. I was interested to learn about the statistics and how schools can support students and create gay-straight alliances. A big takeaway for me is the necessity of a focus of anti-bullying in schools.

I read several good reviews of this book, so I snatched it off the shelf when I saw it at the library. I groaned at the first few pages - the author seemed to employ all the stereotypes of gay children. But this improved as the book went on, and he and his wife really are sympathetic parents.

The book is a story of their young son not only dealing with his sexual orientation, but a number of other emotional and learning issues that may or may not have been caused or exacerbated by his sexual orientation. I was drawn into this part of the book. The chapters that dealt with legalities, public policy and medical science were not as strong. Because they were just part of the author's larger personal story, they could only begin to touch on the issues, yet had too much info to merely support the narrative. I think it would have been a stronger book if he had omitted those chapters and only used pieces of info from them to inform his family's story.

What I found most intriguing was his discussion of his family's interaction with the school system. The family lives in one of the highest ranked school districts in the country, yet the lack of communication with parents was horrendous. The parents learned a lot over the years on how to advocate for their son, and I would love to see the couple write a book on this specific subject. By the end of the book I feel they had reached an excellent balance of being very supportive of their son and watchful of the school system to make sure their son was getting what he needed/was entitled to without being overbearing. I think other parents could really benefit from hearing more about their experience and tips for dealing with school systems.

Obviously, the parents know their child much better than I do from a short book, but the way the book was written, I felt like the author was pointing to his son's sexuality as the source of all his problems, but it didn't read that way from the book. There were many other things going on with this kid that the schools should have been addressing better even if they didn't address his sexuality.

It sounds like the author's wife did a herculean job in supporting her son, and I admired her. At the end of the book the author acknowledges that his wife really co-wrote the book with him. So my question is, why isn't her name on the cover too?

Very intriguing. Lots of thoughts. I'd love to talk about it with people.

Oddly Normal is one of the best parenting books I’ve read. Period. Schwartz’s account of his son’s childhood, coming out and struggles in school made for a memoir I won’t soon forget. It’s the perfect blend of professional research and personal anecdotes. Masterfully put together and intensely thought-provoking, the most memorable thing about this book is how Schwartz and his wife were unapologetic advocates for their son Joe. Whether it was in supporting his coming out to them or in defending him against overeager therapists or cruel teachers, you know this family is built on immense love and trust. There is palpable love and concern nearly bursting from each page, starting with Schwartz’s disclaimer at the beginning of the book that he worked closely with Joe in writing such a personal account.

In the hands of someone less competent (Schwartz is a correspondent at the New York Times), this book could have easily come off well-meaning but ultimately exploitative. There is such a fine line when revealing personal details about a child—especially in the case of a child that’s still young. Schwartz’s book is packed with information that Joe may have preferred left hidden in other circumstances (Schwartz discusses Joe’s attempted suicide, his struggle in coming out, his many therapy sessions and difficulties in school, etc.), but you get a sense that Joe has enormous trust in his parents and especially in his father. Placing such a story in the hands of your dad cannot have been an easy decision for him. Yet, the result is so fine a book and the content so beautifully conveyed that there is not a hint that Schwartz’s mismanaged his son’s story.

Schwartz is the parent every child would love to have—one that is free of judgment, fair in discipline and firm in the role of protector and advocate. He embraces Joe—all of him. Even so, Schwartz owns up to Joe’s academic shortcomings and discusses them liberally, but it never feels judgmental. That’s an important distinction. Schwartz admits when he and his wife make mistakes, but they don’t give up. They do more research and look for better solutions. They are wholly devoted to Joe and to their two other children and it’s incredibly moving to read about.

There are other things in this book that underline its importance as a modern parenting memoir. The insight about social interactions and bullying at schools is valuable and Schwartz’s discussion of his research about ADHD, Asperger’s and teen suicide/depression is interesting and enlightening. And, of course, the portions of the book about sexuality and especially about teen sexuality are honest, moving and educational. The lengths that Schwartz went to in order to back up his own family’s narrative with relevant research cannot be underestimated. Sometimes extensive research littered throughout memoirs can be distracting or frustrating, but here it provided important depth.

Oddly Normal was incredibly engaging and thought-provoking and I hope you take a moment to read it yourself. The last chapter is one of the most moving of any book I’ve read yet this year.

I really wanted to like this book. And in my defense, I really tried to. But, try as I might, it just didn't work out.

The premise of this book is a good one -- the story of parents who realize early on that their son may be gay, and their journey in helping him grow to accept who he is. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the book is technically well written (the author/father, John Schwartz, is a journalist, after all), the story left me shaking my head more often than I expected, or thought necessary.

I got the distinct feeling, while reading of Joe Schwartz's troubles during his early years in school, that his parents were a bit too eager to ascribe his various academic and behavioural issues to his sexuality -- a fact that bothered me, especially given the fact that the child himself had yet to even acknowledge said sexuality. He's gifted? Of course he is, he's gay! He's disruptive in class? Of course he is, he's dealing with being gay! Someone should tell these parents that it is, in fact, possible to be straight and gifted, or straight and disruptive in class. There's being supportive of your child (possibly) being part of the LGBT community -- and then there's being a bit *too* supportive. It seemed to me as though nothing was *ever* Joe's fault.

I understand that LGBT kids often experience emotional and behavioural issues that are related to their sexuality, but honestly, these parents seemed to connect *everything* to the fact that he was gay. And while I understand the reticence that parents often feel when approached with the possibility that their child may have a neurological condition like autism or Asperger's, the absolute refusal of these parents to even consider those possibilities is mind-blowing. Don't get me wrong -- there's absolutely nothing wrong with a child being gay. But there's also absolutely nothing wrong with a child being autistic, or having Asperger's syndrome.

I also can't help but wonder if their absolute refusal to consider medication for him might have made a difference in Joe's life. Kids who are mentally healthy don't end up stark naked in their parents' bathroom, having taken an overdose of Benadryl, and it certainly seems as though Joe's subsequent stay in a psychiatric facility and his being placed on medication made a substantial, positive difference in his life. It's like everything in his life before the overdose was hell, but once he came out of the psych facility, everything was suddenly fine. Was that due to the fact that, finally, Joe had been medicated properly? Could the suicide attempt have been avoided entirely if only his parents hadn't resolutely refused to consider the possibility of his being medicated? There is nothing shameful in having a child who suffers from depression, but it seems as though the Schwartzes go to huge leaps in order to convince themselves, and others, that their son couldn't possibly be depressed. Did it really have to get to the point where he nearly took his own life to convince them otherwise?

I also found that the suicide attempt, rather than acting as a turning point in the story, felt like it was thrown in and then glossed over as quickly as possible. It was almost buried in the book among all of the statistics and studies. I felt cheated, to be honest. After all the build-up and detail of this boy's life, this huge event occurs in his life and his father chooses to simply brush past it? I know that having a child attempt to take his own life must be a horrific thing, but if Schwartz chose to include it in his book -- and, in fact, chooses to begin his book with it -- then he should at least be willing to deal with it in at least a little more detail.

(As a sidenote: the passage in which Schwartz sits in the ER with his son trying to force feed him activated charcoal struck me as incredibly odd. Wouldn't a suspected case of overdose be considered serious enough that time would be of the essence, especially since the kid wasn't even totally conscious? Certainly it seems to me as though the situation would be urgent enough that the medical staff wouldn't have a reaction along the lines of "Oh, see if you can get him to drink this." I'm not saying that the father is making up these details, but man....that passage struck me as being ridiculous and incredibly hard to believe.)

As I said: I really wanted to like this book. It had the potential to be an excellent resource for parents who are raising a child who is a part of the LGBT community. But I personally found that what could have been an excellent book just ended up being a way for the Schwartzes to use their son's experiences to say "Look how awesome we are as parents! We supported our son from the beginning and made sure that everyone catered to him his entire life!"

Sorry, Mr. Schwartz. I'm not buying it.

Interesting inspection of parents attempt to help their son. They suspected from an early age that their 3rd child was gay (even going so far as to go to meetings and check out gay youth groups in Manhattan while their son was still in grade school) when he gets bullied upon coming out in 6th grade, he attempts suicide. Eventually the family becomes advocates for gay youth and teenage depression and suicide. Author did a good job weaving personal story with resources on depression and sexuality and bullying.

I loved this book. I thought the father, and author, had a very good way of writing about his son and all the things he had gone through. There was a nice blend of stories about Joesph and facts/figures from various sources. I would recommend this to any parent who is coming to terms with having a LGBT child.

Fantastically moving story of one family's love for their "squirelly" child.