The blurb cover reviews of this book are on point. Rooney's characters are clearly well-drawn millennials, with fascinating conversations and behavior that is subtle and full of meaning. There is a basic respect for the cultural moment at work here.

As a reader deeply familiar with nuances of millenial & post-millenial romance in a post-John Green world in the US, I became a bit distracted by the "my life is changing as I grow up" narrative. It's been tried and fared well by many stronger authors over decades, even more than a century or so. I would have much rather have seen action from these characters that was more layered and developed, leading to a true bildungsroman rather than a sometime "relationships" novel. The novel seems to move between both, never fully realizing its full milieu. However it's still a good read, and I might be curious to read more Rooney in the future.

Incredibly complex, this character driven novel is likely not for everyone. Actually, this is one of the most emotionally honest pieces of writing I think I have ever read.. Although quite dark, there is a little of Marianne and Connell in everyone at some point in their life with most being able to move past it rather than get stuck in it as they do. Sally Rooney is a true talent. I would highly recommend this novel, but in reality, I feel it is probably quite polarizing...readers will either love it, or hate it, without much room for middle ground. I fall in the former camp, and this one is going to stick with me for a while.

I only meant to read a little bit and then move on to household chores, but Normal People sucked me in and I ended up reading it in one go.

Had I read this book in my early to mid twenties, I think I would have LOVED it. As a 36 year old I liked it quite a bit, but thank goodness I'm not that age any more. Marianne and Connell have an on again, off again romance, with the off periods invariably a result of poor communication and fear of vulnerability. While in some books, this can be a trite plot device, Rooney is a good enough writer to avoid that. Instead, it feels like an authentic representation of the insecurities and immaturity that can come with early adulthood.

Believe the hype around this book. Although I wouldn't describe it as one of the best books I've ever read, it's definitely one of the year's best. Normal People is a realistic love story. One where people are not open with their feelings and leave too many things unsaid. I definitely will go back and read her first book.

Alienated, disconnected, overburdened. These are the descriptions that come to mind when I think of the two characters in this book, Connell and Marianne. Although this is ultimately billed as a love story, more than the relationship between the two characters I get the sense of all the things in the world that are weighing on them, their struggle to cope and somehow still connect with others, with each other. The story is told alternating perspectives between the two, so we get both sides to key events in their lives, communication and miscommunications. We watch each struggle to find their place in the world, search for meaning in life, negotiate power dynamics in relationships, explore the difference between public and private self, and how much anyone can really know another person. This is a beautiful novel about that great morass of time that defines every generation, the transition to adulthood.

I loved the way this book begins, because I identified very much with Marianne, one of its two narrators. Marianne and Connell are two teens in a small town in Ireland. Marianne is smart, independent, and proud, but has no friends at school. Connell is popular and outgoing, and like many teens he worries a lot about what his friends think of him. Marianne is wealthy; Connell is the son of her family’s maid.

Connell and Marianne are drawn to each other, only Marianne isn’t someone Connell can be seen dating. She knows the other kids at school don’t like her, so she’s willing to be with Connell in secret. As you might imagine that doesn’t work for very long. This beginning to their relationship is heartbreaking and powerful. It could easily feel stereotypical, but Rooney thoughtfully explores many layers of awkwardness in a teenage relationship.

When Connell and Marianne go to college, the entire relationship dynamic shifts. Marianne feels at home in college, while Connell feels he’s lost his friends and his identity. As her confidence grows, she’s seen (by others and herself) as increasingly beautiful.

It’s an interesting love story, as the two come together and break apart. It’s painful at times, even as they betray each other, see other people, and grow in different directions. They feel a sense of completeness with the other, a feeling of being “at home” with the other person that felt very real to me. And yet each of them has to struggle with their own problems and insecurities. Marianne, in particular, comes from an abusive home and struggles to feel she’s worthy of love. Connell was raised by a loving mother, but struggles financially and doesn’t see himself as successful.

They talk about the novels he’s reading, the research she studies, the precise historical moment that they are currently living in, the difficulty of observing such a moment in process. At times he has the sensation that he and Marianne are like figure-skaters, improvising their discussions so adeptly and in such perfect synchronisation that it suprises them both. She tosses herself gracefully into the air, and each time, without knowing how he’s going to do it, he catches her.

Connell and Marianne are sympathetic but there were things I didn’t like about them, and that’s okay with me. Both could be self-centered, and Connell seemed at times willfully blind to the abuse Marianne suffered at home. They have a maddening failure to communicate, but that’s probably realistic in a struggling, complicated relationship. These are characters who seem older than their years at times, but they are still very young.

One thing bothered me about the book, which was the way Rooney conflates Marianne’s issues related to abuse (e.g., inability to trust, to have loving relationships, to feel worthy of being loved) with sexual submission and S&M. I have no expertise in this topic, but it seems to me that there are plenty of adults in healthy relationships who enjoy consensual submission and S&M. Exploring those things does not make you a victim or mean you’re in an abusive relationship. I could be wrong, but I just don’t know that it’s accurate to characterize sexual submission as an effect of childhood or domestic abuse. I’d be curious to hear what others thought.

I loved Rooney’s writing, and found the book heartbreaking at times, slow-moving at other times, and thoughtful throughout. I liked the way it ended as well.

Normal People is on the longlist for this year’s Women’s Prize. It’s one of only three books on the list I’ve read (Circe and An American Marriage are the other two). The shortlist will be announced April 29, 2019.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and publisher Crown Publishing. The book publishes in the U.S. on April 16, 2019.

Normal People (which has been long-listed for the 2018 Man Booker Prize) is my first experience with Sally Rooney, but many readers loved her previous novel, Conversations with Friends. This is the kind of relationship book that is utterly riveting, but also made me feel a little uncomfortable in the best way possible (like White Fur and Tender). Connell and Marianne’s relationship is far from straightforward and is downright maddening at times, but I was rooting hard for them and completely engrossed in their story. Rooney made their story feel incredibly intimate, to the point where I almost felt like I was invading their privacy. I also loved the exploration of social and class dynamics in high school and college (when the story begins in high school, Connell is working class, but popular and Marianne is wealthy, but an outcast) and how those can change over time. There’s a bit of a coming of age element as they both wrestle with their identities and they face challenges stemming from Marianne’s family life. This is an unconventional love story and a character-driven novel I couldn’t put down…I could’ve read it in one sitting if I’d had a good chunk of time! 5 stars! PS – I should tell you this story involves a fair amount of sex and also does not use quotation marks for dialogue (neither of those things bothered me, but they might bother some people).

I like that this book was real. It didn't set out to sugarcoat, or make light of, being a young adult. Normal People tells it like it is. Some may not like that, but I think that's okay. This book will have no trouble finding it's audience. I also think this book does a great job at showing how we grow up when we leave high school, whether because we're forced to or because we want to.

Normal People gets you into the psyche of two very different, very complex young adults, and you see the world, including their pain and their success, through their eyes.

My only dislike about this book was that it was all told as if it was internal monologue; there was no punctuation for the conversations. It's probably just the teacher in me cringing as I read, but it doesn't hold up the book at all.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4 stars

“Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.”
There’s been a lot of buzz going around about this book, well before publication date, and fortunately I had the honor of reading it courtesy of NetGalley and Crown Publishing, and now I understand why.
Normal People is the story of two people, Marianne and Connell, two high school seniors who pretend not to know each other because of social status and class, but the secret is they do, and they’ve developed a relationship. We follow the teens through their senior year of high school and then off to college, where the two run into each other once again but in very different social situations. The narrative continues throughout their years at university, with Connell and Marianne both attempting to find their own paths, continuously drifting apart yet always finding a way back to each other, each time strengthening their bond yet making their friendship even more tortuous. It is the ultimate story of endearment and endurance.
Let me start by saying that the jacket description can be misleading. It is easy to mistake this as more of a YA type book because the main characters are in high school/college. Let me just stop you right there and tell you it is not, although the YA audience should definitely read it. This is a very serious book with multiple layers of complexity dealing with topics such as relationships (both family and personal), abuse, social acceptance, and most importantly communication. The tale carries with it a lot of deep undertones that are intertwined with a very complicated love story.
That’s just it, it’s a story. There is no plot. It’s just a brilliantly written, thought provoking drama that will completely engross you. (Imagine binge watching your favorite TV show/drama). The writing is very fluid, making the novel easy to read. I personally found the characters developed just enough to feel comfortable with them but feeling like they still had a bit of a “secret” hiding, which made them more interesting. There were a few times I honestly stopped reading and had to take a breath, because I was heartbroken over some of the situations that arose over the simple lack of communication.
In the end, I was overwhelmed. I truly wasn’t sure how I felt, I just sighed aloud and had this feeling I still cant describe, even a few days later. It was almost like the heartbreak of letting go and a sense of satisfaction combined in one. (I just cant come up with the word for it). I would definitely recommend this novel to others, I enjoyed reading it and I enjoyed the emotional journey it took me on. I look forward to reading more from Sally Rooney in the future.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for an ARC of this novel for my unbiased and honest review.

Tried and True

Normal People is a no-frills Irish novel observing four years in the life of a young man and woman from the west of Ireland as they graduate high school and matriculate at Trinity College in Dublin.

Though it does not break new ground, brim with profundity, or enshrine Sally Rooney as the Voice of her generation, a label she's rejected, what makes Sally Rooney the writer and this book so special is the overall real-feel, sharp dialogue, a je ne sais quoi elevating it to a sublime redemptive tale whose power lies in illuminating truth in the cracks and at the edges of love and the human condition.

Normal People is a highly fascinating, page-flipping experience, free of sweet sentimentality and high romantic notions. The wonder here is in seeing these 17-year-olds grow and mature, endure travesty, adversities, separations, longings, transforming from self-absorbed, anxious and insecure teens from different classes, who suffer and inflict humiliation, worry if she really loves me or if he can get past my "sub fetish," into young adults, whose ties feel so binding (pun not originally intended) that the couple is, in a word, holistic--as the novel conveys beautifully--with a self-awareness holding sacrifice, selflessness, accommodations for each other foremost, signalling a deep human magnetism, the pair's oak-strong spiritual connection.

Nothing tangible lasts. We grow old and pass away. While Normal People isn't a fairy tale--no happily ever after--it is a welcome and timely and really refreshing reminder that for us such spiritual love is possible, though only if you work hard at it aware that such love transcendent is increasingly rare (it seems) and thus worth everything we have and all we can give.

Thanks to NetGalley, Faber & Faber, and Sally Rooney for the opportunity to read and review her latest novel. I'm a bit conflicted in my review here but I'm going to give it a 3.5, rounded up. It is a character study of two young people whose lives continue to intertwine yet never really get to the connection they should; ends up being a bit sad.

Marianne and Connell met in school when both are teenagers. They come from very different background - Connell's singer mother is Marianne's family's housekeeper. They are drawn to each other and start a secret relationship but since Marianne is considered odd and school with no friends, Connell can't bring himself to bring the relationship to light and behaves badly. They still can't leave each other alone and meet again at university. This time, Marianne is the popular one where Connell feels adrift. This back-and-forth relationship continues throughout the book.

It's a commentary on bullying and how it changes both the bully and the one who bullies; peer pressure; self-esteem and social class - all so very relevant topics in this social media world. It was a bit of a slow read for me.

This book just wasn't for me. However, I can see why some would love it. It's uniquely written with quirky main characters. I struggled with the punctuation throughout the book. The lack of quotation marks made the story difficult to dive into. It was hard to decipher thoughts vs words said aloud. For the story itself- it was just okay. At times I really related to Marianne, but most of the time I didn't feel connected to the characters even though they were developed. The characters didn't evolve and the plot didn't thicken. With that being said, I think that was purposeful. Normal People just wasn't a match for me.

This was a hyped up book that seemed to warrant it until I got about a third of the way through and then it got tedious. The author seemed to focus on the mannerisms of the characters, like how they held their breath or touched their hair and the characters were very self centered and boring and I wasn't engaged at all.

Marianne let Connell in the door . His mother Lorraine cleans for Marianne’s mom. Marianne hated it at school and has no friends. She spends her lunch usually alone reading novels. Connell believes she is the smartest person at school. But she doesn’t acknowledge Connell at school or him her. It would put Connell in an awkward position. Everyone at school thinks Connell wants Miss Leery but he doesn’t. Sometimes he thinks she flirts with him some but he doesn’t say anything. Any time Connell has had sex he has found it stressful and largely unpleasant , leading him to suspect there’s something wrong with him, that he’s unable to be intimate with women, that he’s somehow developmentally impaired. Marianne said she knew he probably hated her but he was the only person who actually talks to her. Connell says he doesn’t hate her. Connell knows he can tell her anything about himself and she would never say anything. Marianne went with ehr school to watch a final soccer game. Connell was playing and scored a goal. It seemed insane to Marianne that she should have to dress up in a costume for school every morning and be herded around a huge building all day that she wasn’t even allowed to move her eyes when she wanted to. After Marianne told Connell he liked her she started coming over more. Connell said he liked hearing her opinions . than Connell asked her if she only liked him as a friend and she said no. Connell said he was kinda confused how he feels and it would be awkward at school if anything happened . Marianne answered none would have to know. Then he kissed her. Connell took Marianne’s virginity and they continued sleeping together. Connell’s mother cleans Marianne’s home twice a week and Connell picked her up to take her home as she didn’t have a driver’s license. With Marianne physically sex felt right. But why Marianne? Marianne lives a drastically free life Connell thought while he was trapped by various considerations. He cared what people thought of him- even Marianne. Multiple times he had tried writing his thoughts down on paper in an effort to make sense of them. Connell’s friends were teasing him about taking Marianne home so he asked Rachel to the Debs. When Connor’s mom found out what he did by asking rachel when she knew he was sleeping with marianne and says you can have sex with her but kept it a secret and than ask another girl to the Debs. Than she added she was ashamed of him and got out of his car to take the bus home. Once Connell told Marianne he was taking Rachel to the Debs ahd quit school and wouldn’t answer his calls. Lorraine bought it up to Marianne and she said good he doesn’t deserve you. Lorraine also told Connell he was barred from going into Marianne’s house. Than when Connell went to college he was the one who didn’t have any friends . Than he meets Garrett who is a popular guy and just happens to be Marianne’s boyfriend and now she has a lot of friends. l was like they had switched places. After Marianne quit school Connell became depressed and everyone noticed. Connell didn’t like the person he had turned into.He missed the way MArianne made him feel and he missed her company. Connell started to drink more and have anxious upsetting sex with other girls. Than when Connell is in college he has no friends than he meets Garrett who is a popular guy and happens to be Marianne's boyfriend and she now has a lot of friends, it was like they had switched places.
I just could not connect with this book or the characters. This just didn’t hold my attention enough to make it an enjoyable read for me. I’m not sure why. Although i did applaud marianne for breaking all contact with Connell. I am sure there are other people who will really enjoy this book it just wasn’t for me.

"Normal People" by Sally Rooney, Hogarth, 288 pages, April 16, 2019.

In rural Ireland, Connell and Marianne pretend they don't know each other. They do. Connell's mother cleans for Marianne's family.

Connell is a star in football. Marianne isn't popular.

A year later, both are students at Trinity College in Dublin. Now Connell is struggling and Marianne is doing well. They are not officially a couple, but are always in each others' lives.

Marianne feels unworthy of love unless she is being abused. Her family dislikes her, for unknown reasons. Connell has trouble fitting in.

This was first published in Britain, where it was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

This is about cynical 20-somethings. There are a lot of sexual scenes. The dialogue is wooden. "Normal People" has been earning a lot of praise, but I didn't care for it.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

I really wanted to love this novel, so I went in to it with the belief that I was absolutely going to devour it. When I began reading it, I had a really hard time with the writing; or rather, the editing.

I have learned that I prefer punctuation when reading a book. I don’t only prefer it; I really desire it. It made reading the entire story very abrupt, if that makes sense.

While understanding and sometimes enjoying the relationship between Marianne and Connell throughout the years, the book was a struggle for me. I really enjoyed their High School years the most, after that it all got a bit bland for me.

I felt no connection to this book. Maybe I am missing something, and I feel awful if I am. I am sure there are some readers that will enjoy this particular style of writing and storyline, it just was not for me.

Believe the hype: Sally Rooney is a star, and Normal People is a fantastic book. Not that anything I write in this review will communicate that, because the great pleasure of reading a Sally Rooney book (Conversations with Friends is also terrific) is plunging into her idiosyncratic voice, which is bracingly sharp and clear, instantly recognizable and different from anything I’ve ever read. Normal People details the on again, off again relationship between wealthy, intellectual misfit Marianne and Connell, the smart, popular son of the woman who cleans Marianne’s house, in a series of chapters that alternate between their perspectives and jump forward in time (sometimes days, sometimes months, sometimes hours) over the course of four years, during which they graduate from high school and move from their small provincial town to Trinity College in Dublin.

But what elevates this novel beyond just another campus romance is Rooney’s uncanny ability to get under the skin of her characters—they are excruciatingly believable at an almost cellular level. Take, for instance, how the teenaged Connell, in the early awkward moments of his relationship with Marianne, “presses his hands down slightly further into his pockets, as if trying to store his entire body in his pockets all at once,” or how social outcast Marianne has “the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it.” Their dialogue—whether in face-to-face conversations or over text or email (they are millennials, after all)—is never inauthentic; it always sounds as real and unforced as a conversation you would overhear on the street or at the next table in a restaurant. Rooney’s great trick is that she manages to achieve this deep emotional resonance with prose that sounds almost detached.

That might not seem like a good enough reason to pick up this book, but I promise you—it is. I cared about Connell and Marianne and felt a frisson of excitement in recognizing bits of my younger self and my own children in them, and in seeing how Rooney accomplishes the hard work of making her writing seem effortless. Just make sure when you do pick up Normal People—and you must—that you have a large chunk of available time ahead of you, because you won’t want to put it down.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. Loved every minute of it.

First off, I have to say that I was lucky enough to get a free advanced copy of this book via Netgalley. I have been hearing SO much buzz about this book and was very excited to dig in. This is the story of Marianne and Connell, meeting in high school and the ups and downs of their relationship over the course of the next few years. Sally Rooney writes in such a way that you feel as though you are completely in the relationship with them, I felt jealous and angry at times when things would happen in each of their lives. I will admit that at times, I was hoping more would happen. This is is not a plot driven book but rather character driven, which I was not as aware of. Ultimately, I thought this was a great story about friendship and loyalty. This is a perfect spring/summer read.

<b><i>Normal People</i> is a deft depiction of a dysfunctional dance between two acquaintances/friends/lovers/friends-with-benefits/seriously-what-are-they-nobody-can-tell.</b> Told in spare prose that is at once calculatedly removed and deeply intimate, Sally Rooney delivers a masterful exercise in long-term character study.

<b>To summarize the plot of this book is all but impossible.</b> Between the lack of any single unifying plot arc—which, of course, is deliberate, since this is a book about the people themselves, not a true “story”—and the fact that the central relationship evolves so many times over the course of the novel, there isn’t much I can say that won’t either give something away or really convey what happens. Still, I will do my best.

<b>At the heart of the novel are Marianne and Connell, two high school students in a small town in Ireland.</b> Marianne’s family is rich; Connell’s mom cleans Marianne’s family’s house. Marianne is a lone wolf, often made fun of by other students; Connell is actually kind of cool. And so, when the two begin to develop a friendship outside of school, Connell makes it abundantly clear that their relationship must remain there, never to be alluded to while his friends are around. Still, seemingly inexplicably, a deep connection forms between the two of them, and their relationship shifts between shades of love, friendship, trust, betrayal, and lots of confusion. When they finally leave their hometown, they attend the same university, and their worlds flip upside down. Now, Marianne is the cool one, while Connell has few friends and lives dedicated to his studies. Still, the two continue to weave in and out of each other’s lives and social circles, varying in degrees of closeness, but always able to come back to each other as confidants and true friends.

<b>More than anything, this book dazzlingly portrays a relationship that defies all odds, all geographies and ideologies and rules of common society.</b> Like all human friendships, Marianne and Connell’s is complicated and constantly evolving, but it is one of those rare, true friendships where no matter how much time passes, you can always pick up and feel like you never really left. Even when the two won’t speak to each other, there is an undercurrent of hope. <b>The real joy in this book—and what makes up the bulk of the reason for its four-star rating—is the simple complexity (yes, I know that’s an oxymoron) of these two characters and how artfully Rooney depicts it.</b> From elation to depression and popularity to isolation, their struggles are real and visceral. You really are able to get inside Connell and Marianne’s heads, and their thoughts and personalities will definitely stick with me for a while.

<b>So why not a five-star rating?</b> Honestly, there were bits of the characters that annoyed me. I know that good characters aren’t supposed to be perfect, but certain elements grated on my nerves a little too much. Connell has a huge hero complex, and Marianne, despite her despair over many parts of her life, doesn’t seem to grow nearly as much as I would like her to. There’s also a lot of sex in the book, especially early on (seriously, I was surprised Marianne didn’t get a UTI…), and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it was almost getting in the way of everything else. The relationship between Marianne and Connell also has a bit of an insta-love quality to it, or that weird perfect-soulmates-and-truest-friends vibe that doesn’t quite make sense, given their often-problematic history.

<b>All in all, this is a quality read. It is not fast-paced, nor is it what I would call a page-turner, but it is an impactful work for sure.</b>

<b>TRIGGER WARNINGS: depictions of abuse (both physical and mental/emotional), major depression, mention of suicidal thoughts, mentions of BDSM, some questionable consent</b>

<i>Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.</i>

I know I’m the umpteenth person to post about “Normal People” but I have to write about it because I truly liked this novel. It’s not a new story by any means: two people from different social and socio-economic statuses have a complicated, mostly undefined (by both parties) relationship that spans their years through university. .
What makes this book so great is Sally Rooney. She does a spectacular job of entering the minds of these two people and capturing the unspoken feelings and words of these characters who carry unresolved heavy emotions towards themselves and each other that only build up over time as they move on with life. There are so many little moments throughout the years where vulnerability could have changed the course of their relationship, so many moments of holding back that I related to. There are moments towards the end that really leaned into to topics of depression and abuse, but overall it was heartbreaking, beautiful read.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from the publisher