Who Wants Normal?
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  • Published: 8 July 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241629437
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $42.99

Who Wants Normal?

The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life

Formats & editions
Hardback
8 Jul 2025
EBook
3 Apr 2025
Audiobook
3 Apr 2025
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A groundbreaking memoir about what it means to be a disabled woman in Britain today from the acclaimed journalist and author, including insights and personal stories from over 50 contributors

'No one really talks about it. No one really talks about what it is to be a disabled woman, especially a young one. To go a bit mad. To experience pain or exhaustion or feel 92. To navigate all the standard parts of life - exams, careers, dating - but with a body that is different than everyone else’s.'

Part memoir, part manifesto, and full of Frances Ryan’s trademark warmth, humour and honesty (as well as hard-hitting statistics), Who Wants Normal? explores six facets of life: education, careers, body image, health, relationships and representation, as well as how to survive life's bumps in the road.

It draws on Frances’s own experience, as well as from highly personal interviews with over 50 of Britain's best known women and non-binary people with mental and physical health conditions, including Jameela Jamil, Ruth Madeley, Sophie Morgan, Rosie Jones, Fearne Cotton, Emma Barnett, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Marsha de Cordova MP, Ellie Goldstein and Katie Piper.

Who Wants Normal? lifts the lid off a subject that is too often shrouded in stereotypes and silence. It offers support, inspiration and a sense of solidarity to the 1 in 4 women with long-term health conditions – and will open the eyes of anyone wanting to better understand what life is really like with a disability.
  • Published: 8 July 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241629437
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $42.99
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Praise for Who Wants Normal?

This book is beautiful, vital and important. I loved it

Jack Thorne

A razor sharp, super-smart manifesto by one of the most vital voices in British journalism today. This guide is a crucial call to action not just for disabled women, but for everyone who wants to have a better understanding of what it means to live with a disability

Yomi Adegoke

Frances has long been one of my writing heroes - this book is typically smart, funny, clarifying and enraging

Eva Wiseman

This superb book is a rallying cry for true equality for disabled people. Full of shocking stats, real life experiences and humour, it made me angry, laugh and gasp

Victoria Derbyshire

The must-read manifesto…this new book blends memoir and practical insight in an unmissable call to action…it covers education, careers, health, body image, relationships, representation and more

Stylist – 26 must-read books that will be massive this year

Illuminating and spirited - such a necessary book

Marina Hyde

One of the most interesting and important writers working in the UK today

Nish Kumar

Disability is an unnecessarily awkward subject for far too many people given the millions and millions of people within our society who engage with it daily, either due to their own health struggles, or those of someone they love. Frances has a talent for de-stigmatising the conversation and pushing past the uncomfortable to the necessary in an engaging and undeniable fashion. An inimitable voice in disability advocacy. We all need this book

Jameela Jamil

I’ve never related to a book more. Brilliant, honest and so powerful. Disabled or not, you MUST read this book

Rosie Jones

There are so many "Yes! That happened to me too!" moments in this book that reading it feels like having a gossipy evening in with the best of friends - the best disabled women friends

Liz Carr

Exceptional ... A must read

British Vogue

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the book [...] is its frequently celebratory tone ... Who Wants Normal? is also a defiant call to embrace what she calls 'disabled joy', to show disabled women living full and happy lives as a counter to the stereotypes

Guardian

Supercharged relevance [full of] robust analysis and wry humour… readers will find here stories to inspire, enrage and encourage

Observer
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