Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing house for providing a review copy of this novel. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’m a read-it-before-you-watch-it person and have been dying to see the Hulu series that was adapted from this book.  I had heard such mixed reviews on this that I’ve, honesty, been unmotivated to read it.

It seems that people either fall in the camp of loving it or loathing it. 

For me, this one is a hard one to really review, because the writing was so descriptive and well-done.

This complicated love story is set in a small town in Ireland.

Connell and Marianne attend high school together and they are the perfect, “opposites attract,” love story. She comes from a wealthy family, but struggles to fit in at her school. Connell is popular, but has to work for his success.

The reader takes a journey, with Rooney, from the  beginning days of their relationship. No matter how badly they seem to want to start new identities and lives, they always seem to be pulled back into one another’s gravity.

This unrequited love story sounded like a winner, but was really dull. 

The jumpy timeline, the big focus on how ugly she was, and the moodiness of the whole thing just didn’t work for me.

The plot felt shallow, the ending abrupt, and the psychological exploration felt forced. 

I wouldn’t say that I fell in the “hate it camp,” but I definitely did not get the hype.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I actually did not finish this book. I had high hopes for it, but the characters and story just did not draw me in.

Quirky and unique take on a "romance" story, though I'm not sure I get the adulation of this book. While I liked how Rooney captured the inner thoughts and worlds of both Connell and Marianne, the actual external interaction between them and others was lacking any real spark or sparkle - everything seemed dull and depressing, and I intensely disliked all of the supporting characters. The endless miscommunications between Connell and Marianne, borne of raging insecurity, were infuriating.

I knew going in that I would be absolutely gutted by the end. And that is exactly what happened.

I actually watched the series on Hulu before reading this book. The show left me emotionally wrecked. So I knew the book would have the same effect. What surprised me the most was how similar the two were. The show was done so well. It really was spot on compared to the book. It’s one of the best adaptations I even seen.

I fell so in love with these two characters, Connell and Marianne. The chemistry between them was extreme. I loved the intensity they felt for each other. A magnetic pull that kept re-uniting them throughout the years. They would have intellectual conversations and passionate sex yet they found it so hard to express their true feelings for one another until it was already to late. Both were guilty when it came to Self-sabotaging themselves.

I really enjoyed everything about this book. The story was simple and uncomplicated even though the characters themselves weren’t. The writing was alluring and deliciously fulfilling.

My only complaint, which is minor, is the ending. It may not have ended the way I would have preferred...but hey, you can’t always get what you want. And I’m okay with that.

In the end, it was a really lovely story.

Connell and Marianne FOR-EV-ER!!!

I found this book to be deep and profoundly relate able to youth in their 20s. The two characters struggle a lot and the coming together/breaking apart help the, grow both as individuals and adults. I highly recommend this title for adult book clubs seeking a tight introspective novel about growing up and slice of life. I look forward to reviewing more from this author in the future. The series special was Fantastic as well.

Tried to read it and honestly couldn't finish. It was hard to read, boring, and too prose-y for me. I know some people loved it but it just wasn't for me.

I went back and forth on my opinions of this book. At first I tried to make myself like it because they were teenagers and they had a weird sense of love and it was a very believable story. Two people who were young fell in love and struggled with their emotions during. But honestly, the whole thing was so problematic. There is no resolution to the deep mental health and codependency issues happening, and it really glorified that.

"Normal People" manages to capture the nuance and intimacy that comes with relationships. While I wasn't as captivated as I would've liked to be throughout the novel, Rooney's writing style is phenomenal, incredibly personal and current, and I enjoyed this book.

Normal People by Sally Rooney focuses on the pivotal moments between two people who drift in and out of each other's lives. It's brilliantly written, smart, charming, sad and funny. There's humor and warmth here, even though the book's central characters are two prickly misfits. It deserves all the praise it has received.

I really enjoyed this book. It seems like the author is a self-insert for Marianne, which is neither good nor bad, just an observation. The story managed to be romantic and sad, and captured what it feels like to be young and in love, but also sort of angry at the world.

I loved the way Ms. Rooney writes but I didn't love or understand her characters. I felt old, and American, and a bit like I was reading Coming of Age in 2019. More than anything, I felt like this didn't reflect well on me - it is not a criticism of the book! I liked the sparseness of the language, and her eye and precision., and it was compelling story.

This book was just okay for me. I didn't love either of the main characters and many of their problems could've been solved if they had just communicated with each other! The story is very much about following these two characters and not much else happens. I also didn't love the ending......too open-ended for me.

4.5 Stars.
How to describe this book- unique and exceptional!! A look at a relationship over a period of years that is atypical of any other book I have read. A thought provoking book- I kept thinking about our two main characters, Marianne and Connell, and their dynamics. Their relationship starts in high school. Marianne is upper class and socially awkward. Connell is lower class and popular. We follow them both through the years, with their paths connecting and diverging. The author alternates between both of them, making each a fully formed character.
There is so much that haunts both of them. It was beautiful how they found solace with each other.
I found the title very apt. What constitutes “normal people”? It left me much to reflect on and consider.
I found this book totally engrossing!

Normal People is a great novel that I could not put down. I loved the complicated, sweet relationship between Connell and Marianne. Highly recommend.

I'll read anything Sally Rooney writes forever and ever amen. She's so graceful on the page, and so good at writing the inner lives of women her age. She is the great millennial writer of our time and I'm excited for more books so I can analyze societal niceties and boundary lines along with her characters. This book definitely made me pick up Conversations With Friends too--also brilliant.

Connell and Marianne have known each other forever. They both grew up in a small Irish community and went to school together. Connell was a popular kid, smart and athletic, everybody loved him. Marianne was a quiet, bookish young woman. She was a loner who did her own thing and was okay with not having any friends. And Connell's mother was her family's housekeeper. It was on those days when Connell picked his mother up that they struck up a friendship. One that followed them through the years. Through the end of high school, on to Trinity College, and beyond. Their friendship saw them through both good and bad times. But will it be the kind of friendship that stands the test of time?

Normal People is *the* book of 2019 and I didn't want to finish the year without finishing it. Especially since it is set in Ireland. Both Marianne and Connell were flawed people, some would even say deeply flawed. In ways that made my heart hurt, for both of them. Teens are often flawed when it comes to relationships, their communication skills were the most lacking thing about them. But I kept reading with the anticipation that they would grow out of their issues. The more I read, the more I realized that true relationships are when you accept each other, flaws and all. And let's not forget that Normal People is set in Ireland and that is so very clear on every page.

Bottom Line - Normal People is not a flashy story with big revelations. It is a brilliant, slow and steady book that will leave you contemplating your own relationships. I understand why it has made so many "Best of 2019" lists. It truly is one of the best books of the year.

Details:

Normal People by Sally Rooney
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 4/16/19
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Buy it Here!
Thank you to NetGalley for the book in exchange for a review.

I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style of this and the premise, but the characters were hard to relate to and at most times, insufferable. It was just a whole lot of back and forth without anything coming from it, and two people who lacked the ability to properly communicate and express what they were feeling which made for a frustrating reading experience despite the fact that I love the style of writing.

They should never have been friends. Connell is popular at school, a jock, smart and in the top circle socially. Marianne is totally unpopular, the girl everyone talks about and makes fun of. She can be found by herself reading a book and ignoring everyone who makes her life uncomfortable. She is acknowledged as the smartest person in the class and wealthy but that doesn't give her any status. The two develop a relationship outside of school and even there it shouldn't have happened. Connell's mother cleans house for Marianne's family. The two ignore each other at school but soon they develop a sexual relationship outside the prying eyes of their classmates. It continues until close to the end of high school when Connell does an unforgivable thing to Marianne.

Cut to college. Both end up at Trinity College in Dublin. There the roles are reversed. Marianne has an active social life and is doing great in school. Her life is the one she has dreamed of living as she always knew better things were waiting once she got away from the small town she grew up in. Connell is not as lucky. The traits that made him popular in high school don't seem to count for much at Trinity and he finds it difficult to make connections. He ends up at a party and finds his host is dating Marianne. They reconnect and end up living together but at the end of the year a conversation that is misconstrued by each leads to the end of their time together.

As the months and then years go by, Marianne and Connell's relationship endures although in various forms. They see each other through other relationships but there is a draw to each other that pulls them together time after time. Will this be an enduring relationship and are they even right for each other?

Sally Rooney has written a very readable novel about modern romance. There are lots of other people at the periphery of Connell and Marianne's relationship and sometimes they seem to be more important to the two than their love for each other. There is a casualness to love in this novel that is probably more realistic than the mantra of the one true love many readers were brought up to believe but it is a bleaker life than a relationship that puts the other first forever. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction and also for parents that need to understand what love is like for their children in today's world.

I’ve been having trouble writing a review for this one, which is why it has taken me so long to post my final thoughts. While I didn’t love it, I also ending up… not hating it? I think it took me a while to get into partly because of the style of writing, partly because of the characters, and partly because of the nature of the story. This is outside what I normally read, so it took a minute for me to settle into the groove of reading it.

This book is heavy on character development and light on plot. The story follows Connell and Marianne; their lives as individuals but mostly their complicated relationship with each other. Their struggles, their accomplishments, their growing pains, their faults. I can’t say it was a particularly enjoyable reading experience, the characters are not easy to like at first and some of the things they go through are extremely difficult and those are tough to read about. It brought out a bit of melancholy in me which put me in a bit of a funk for a few days if I’m honest. Maybe I’m just not used to reading these stories. Or maybe they just aren’t the types of books I like to read and that’s okay.

I will say, even though I have mixed feelings about it as a whole, I think it was Rooney’s writing that kept me reading. Something about the way she told the story made me want to find out where these characters ended up in the end. Which brings me to the fact that I did not like where she left off Marianne in the end. Something about her story felt incomplete in a way Connell’s didn’t - even though the story just sort of stops. There’s no real closure on anything and it’s left quite open-ended. But I think Marianne deserved a better ending than the one she got.

Overall, I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it, but I think I’d only recommend to someone I know for sure likes these types of stories/books. What about you? Have you read this one? Will you be watching the BBC/HULU series? (I am definitely going to check it out).

CW/TW: Physical and verbal abuse, depression, anxiety, disordered eating, suicide.