Book Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner who has learnt from painful experience to stay away from her classmates. When the two strike up a conversation in Marianne’s kitchen – awkward but electrifying – something life-changing begins.

Normal People is the story of a mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people – funny, magnetic, complex – who try to stay apart, but find that they can’t. It shows us how difficult it is to change who we are. And with heartbreaking tenderness, it reveals how we learn about sex and power, the desire to be hurt and to hurt, the desire to love and be loved.

Here is an exquisite love story which breathes fiction with new life.

Normal People by Sally Rooney is a fairly easy read, but I found that it just didn’t flow as well as other books I’ve read. On my Good Reads app, I’ve given it 3 out of 5 stars.

For starters, I really dislike that speech marks are not used! I found it hard at times to decipher who was talking out loud to who and when as oppose to whether some of the conversations were just the characters internal thoughts. It really bugged me!

I found the story line itself lacking of any real plot. Marianne grows up in a wealthy household. Connell does not. In fact, Connell’s mother is a cleaner who happens to clean for Marianne’s parents. This is how Marianne and Connell know one another.

We follow their relationship, in which a lot of casual sex between them occurs, from that first conversation in the kitchen to when they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin.

Over the years a connection grows between them that lasts long into the following years, yet I was frustrated that on the outside they appeared to want to be together but kept making up excuses and reasons as to why they shouldn’t be together. The majority of those reasons were very poor and just so far from real life that I failed to really connect with the characters or story line.

I think three stars is pretty generous to be honest! Whilst I can’t say I enjoyed reading this book, I didn’t not enjoy it either. I’m fairly neutral about it. I think it’s one of those books where you either love it or hate it!