Plot Summary of Finding a Different Kind of Normal
"Jeanette Purkis is born in England in 1974. She moves to Australia in the 1980s and has continuing struggles fitting in with her peers at school. As a teenager, Jeanette joins the Socialist Party and spends her time away from home, attending protests and other socialist-type things. Through the Socialist movement, Jeanette meets a criminal and ends up in prison after committing an armed robbery. In prison Jeanette learns that she has something called Asperger Syndrome - a condition related to autism - that has caused many of her difficulties in relating to people and understanding human behaviour. Jeanette refuses to accept her diagnosis and drifts through several years of criminal activity and drug use. She hits rock bottom and decides to turn her life around, enrolling in therapy courses, then art school, on her release from a subsequent prison sentence in 2000. Jeanette accepts her diagnosis and completes her Honours degree in fine art, then writes the book."
Jeanette Purkis, Resident Scholar
Review Analysis of Finding a Different Kind of Normal
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Plot
Phys disability/mental struggle?
Yes
Struggle with
- mental illness
Which institution
- prison
Life in an institution
Yes
Period of greatest activity?
- 1950+
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- artist
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity
- White
Nationality
- British
How sensitive is this person?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Physique
- quite fatty
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 3 (some)
City?
Yes
Misc setting
- prison
Century:
- 1980's-Present
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Book makes you feel?
- encouraged
Is book humorous?
Yes
If humorous, kind of humor
- Dry-cynical
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- rape/molest (yeech!)
- lesbians!
Commentary on society?
Yes
Commentary on
- justice system
Writer's slant towards subject:
- favorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of nearly entire life
Autobiography?
Yes
How much dialogue in bio?
- significantly more descript than dialog
A LOT of info about personal vices?
Yes
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 0-25% of book
How much is philosophy rather than life story?
- 0-25% of book
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