Rooney is clearly a “show, don’t tell” advocate. Their thoughts as they try to rationalise the strangeness of adolescence. The omniscient narrator (thank you, GCSE English) lets us into Tipped over into melodrama, although it would have been very easy for it to do I found them both believable and their story never The characters of Marianne and Connell are well developedĪnd pleasingly flawed. Marianne and Connell both end up going to Trinity College in Dublin. My own experiences and probably most of my fellow Millennials’. There isĪ lot of misunderstanding, some of it heart-breaking.

There are too many text messages involved. I also felt like this wasn’t a love story in the traditional They’reĪlso often left undiscussed, because strangely even though teen romances are aĭistant memory for most of us, the emotions we feel surrounding them tend to This is why I believe ‘Normal People’ (aptly named) will Shame, humour and desperate anxiety involved in them alongside all of the typical This tends to remind you of all the embarrassment, She is very good at capturing all of the strange emotions involved in early I really liked that Sally Rooney didn’t do that at all. We can often look back on teenaged romances and dismiss themĪs being quite silly. If you read it, be prepared to relive some of your mostĬringeworthy teenaged moments. Usually, I avoid love stories like the plague, but I had been recommended ‘Normal People’ by so many readers with excellent taste that it seemed worth it. Separate way, but something keeps them coming back to each other, for good or for To work out exactly why that is – and whether it can continue. Marianne will be drawn to each other throughout their lives, each of them trying So when the two of them start a relationship, he decides it’sīest to keep it a secret from everyone at school.Įventually, terrified that his friends will find out that he’sĭating the school weirdo, Connell breaks off the relationship. Marianne is considered to be a bit weird by her peers she has anĪwkward family history that makes people uncomfortable around her, and sheĬonnell, on the other hand, is very popular and does care Marianne and Connell meet at secondary school in a small town Am I just another mindless schmo now? Do I have to stop pretending I understand literature just because I’ve read two of Lazlo Krakornozhai’s books (accidentally)? Am I just another Sally Rooney fan?īefore my book-snobbery crisis spirals any further, I’dīetter tell you what the book is actually about. Usually disappointed by super-hyped books. The hype-monster has been bigging her up for many months now and I’m

Normal people by sally rooney