This is a book of extraordinary clarity and insight written with incisive and generous prose. The novel is also a delight to read, its characters familiar, beautifully rendered, entirely individual and yet resonant and recognizable. The portrayal of friendship, missed connections between beloved, the stark intimacy and radical extraordinary rendition of the affect of relationships makes this a novel that I hated to leave and which will not leave me.

Loved this book. Wasn’t sure what to think at first but the lack of punctuation seemed to get me more into the character’s stories.

This is an incredibly relatable book about a relationship between a young man and woman and the struggles with communication and other problems that come up.

So many times during this book I was thinking about similar situations I’ve had with my relationships. I didn’t want it to end. Really enjoyed the writing.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

At this point there's little left to say about this well reviewed and justifiably praised novel. Connell and Marianne are so much alike -smart and funny- but she's considered weird in their small town. And, he's the son of her family's maid. They hide their relationship in high school and then again, oddly, when they get to Trinity College in Dublin. What saves this from being trite is the uniqueness of the characters and, frankly, their mental health and other issues. Some have suggested this as YA crossover- maybe, maybe not- but it's certainly entirely readable and entertaining no matter if you, like me, are old enough to be, well, definitely their parents if not, ahem, their grandparents. Thanks to net galley for the arc. It's a quick read with enough twists to keep you guessing as to what will happen to these two.

I honestly didn't think I was going to like this book at first. The writing style was different and a little hard to get used to. The characters drew me in, though, and once that happened, I couldn't stop reading. The plot truly revolves around the characters and their relationship so if you don't really like a character driven, character centered plot then you might not like this story. I loved the characterizations. I could feel their struggle to fit in and understand each other and themselves. I've been there, myself.

*Thank you to Netgalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

You know that feeling you get when you’re watching or reading a romcom, when everything was going smoothly but suddenly something seems to go wrong, and your heart just swells and aches a little bit because you were rooting for the couple so much? I get that feeling intensely with a select few movies - e.g. when Elizabeth rejects Darcy’s first proposal in the 2007 Pride and Prejudice movie, or when Dufayel finally tells Amelie to go after Nino Quincampoix. It’s an intense and precious feeling, that aching in your chest, brought about because you love the characters and their story so deeply.

I am generally skeptical of love stories in movies and novels. It doesn’t take much for me to roll my eyes and detach, whether it’s because the female lead is your typical manic pixie dream girl, or because the male lead is shallow and uninteresting, or because their heterosexual romance is just so boring. It takes a delicate balance of conversation, chemistry, and me falling in love with both of the characters as individuals before I can really root for them as a couple.

Somehow, in the span of less than 15% of the book, Rooney not only created a couple that I loved and rooted for, but a couple that gave me that chest-achey feeling where they break each other’s hearts in the smallest ways. She packs a strong punch in a short novel.

On its face, the plot of NORMAL PEOPLE could be any other teen romcom. Two Irish teenagers from different socioeconomic and popularity classes - Connell is an effortlessly handsome, popular star of the football team, and Marianne is an absolute outcast at school. Marianne lives in a huge white mansion in town, and Connell’s mom is her housekeeper. They start sleeping together and Connell insists on keeping it a secret for fear of losing his social status if anyone at school found out. Fast forward a year, they’re both brilliant students at Trinity in Dublin, and their social roles have switched - now Connell is the loner who can’t make friends, and Marianne is the hip social butterfly. I can imagine any other writer butchering this concept, turning into a hackneyed story where love prevails over all. But Rooney writes realistically, not giving us that picture perfect love story that we crave. She writes honestly about class and privilege, about love and sex and heartbreak.

As Marianne and Connell’s lives progress, separately but together, Rooney’s writing hits a stride. The achey feeling doesn’t go away. Her writing conveys that essential hollowness, reminding you of how fragile and sad and intense and empty lives can be. It’s not a happy story in the slightest. You’ll want to cry and you don’t know why.

Rooney’s book is about being a millennial and choosing, very intentionally, how we live our lives, and how that choice is a reflection of every little thing inside of us. (Maybe that sentence means nothing, but if you read the book, I think you’ll understand what I’m trying to say.) Marianne is a broken, fragile thing who allows people to do base, unspeakable things against her, who is simultaneously indifferent to what people think of her and intensely concerned about why people will or won’t love her. Connell is also lost, a person who has no idea who he is or wants to be, and derives ideas for what he should be from the people around him, like his very stable, very normal, very nice girlfriend Helen. They’re both depressed and not depressed, and they both very certainly need therapy. But they both understand each other better than anyone in the world, they have a connection like a silent string that binds them no matter what. It’s beautiful and sad, like the whole damn book. Even at the end, no one is 100%, incandescently happy, but you’re satisfied. As Marianne says, over the course of a few years, they’re two people who just can’t leave each other alone, they’re two plants growing in the same pot, sharing the same soil.

My favorite line from the novel: “Marianne, he said, I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”

What an emotionally difficult read yet threads of hope wind their way throughout the novel. Main characters are both likable and I found myself hoping they'd find a way to accept themselves as they accepted each other. It gave me the some of the same feelings I experienced when reading A Little Life. It is worthy of all the attention and awards it has received.

I think this is a me thing. I totally appreciated the messages this book was trying to portray and I really liked the characters most of the time. I just didn’t fully “get” it.

This book is written… interestingly. Sally Rooney’s prose may gel with others, but for me it was a bit odd. I wasn’t used to it and wasn’t expecting it—especially with the summary of the book. I was expecting more of a love story. This was a love story to an extent, but it also sort of felt like an anti-love story.

I truly liked Connell and Marianne which is why I went so back and forth on my rating for this book. At times it was a 3 star, other times a 4, and I eventually settled at a 2. The ending just wasn’t satisfying for the journey I went on with these two. I highlighted one quote from the novel. It’s sort of long, but I love it, so here it is:

”One night the library started closing just as he reached the passage in Emma when it seems like Mr. Knightley is going to marry Harriet, and he had to close the book and walk home in a state of strange emotional agitation. He’s amused at himself, getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it ‘the pleasure of being touched by great art.’”

I love this part because it feels like ME. I’m reading this book and getting involved in Connell and Marianne’s relationship and letting it affect me even though they’re fictional. What makes it even weirder is how connected I felt to them in different ways. Connell is an anxious, introverted lover of literature. That’s me. Marianne feels things deeply and doesn’t know how to fully express what she wants and doesn’t think she deserves it. That’s me.

The dissonance of how this book made me feel is super weird. It made me uncomfortable and sad and intrigued. I liked it, but I didn’t. Super weird feeling.

Normal People by Sally Rooney was, for me, just alright. This is the love story of Marianne and Connell. These two hook up in high school, that relationship ending when popular boy, Connell, asks another girl to the Debs, the prom in their small Irish town. They meet again in college, where Marianne is now the popular one, and Connell is struggling to fit in. The begin, again, to hook up, this time breaking up when Connell can’t pay his rent, and Marianne, misunderstanding Connell’s way of asking if he can live with her over the summer, assumes he’s breaking up with her. This back and forth continues through the book, where we, the reader understand the depths of their love for each other, but these two can’t seem to get past their weird hang ups to figure it out themselves. The end left me just completely dumbfounded. Just when you think they’ve gained some insight and maturity, off they go again. #netgalley #normalpeople

What an emotional gut wrenching story that had me glued to my kindle. The words that Sally Rooney wrote made this story feel like it was really happening. I felt for the people in this book. The topics of mental health and loss really pulled on my heart strings.
Sally wrote this gut wrenching story with grace and beauty and I look forward to reading more from her in the future!

An emotionally wrenching tale that felt like real life. A painfully true accounting of relationships and growth, mental illness, loss, poverty, classism, and love.

Wow, this book was just so real.
From the miscommunication between the two main characters, to their crushing loneliness and desire to be “normal”, this book is just overflowing with raw emotions. Most people will be able to find something in this book to relate to.

Normal People will not be for everyone, as most “literary fiction” is not. The pace is slow moving, and there was quite a bit of jumping around that was occasionally cumbersome to navigate. However, I was drawn into this story, needing to know how Marianne and Connell were going to continue to navigate their lives with or without each other.

Normal People has struck a chord with a lot of readers, and I understand why.

Thank you to Netgally and Crown Publishing for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoy character-driven novels, and I liked this book quite a bit. The writing took a few chapters to get into, but once I did, it had a nice flow. I did notice a few holes in the story that I wish would've been covered, but overall I thought it was a good book.

This book just wasn’t for me. The lack of quotation marks (almost like steam of consciousness style writing) threw me off. I tried to read it & just couldn’t get into it, so I had to DNF.

I'm not a literary fiction fan generally as it seems like every novel I pick up with that genre description is nothing but wordy, lifeless prose. But this book, this BOOK, was so wonderful that I'm going to have to throw out all my preconceptions about literary fiction.

There isn't much plot to this book beyond following the two main characters, Connell and Marianne, but it totally works. Starting off with the characters being so young, the reader gets to experience this insane level of intimacy with both as they grow both as individuals and in/out of their relationship with one another. They feel incredibly real as you experience both excitement and joy when things go well for them, disappointment when things fail or fall apart, and (at least me) irrational anger at them when they're stupid (aka being teens/in their early-20s). The connection was so strong for me despite character-driven plots also not being my thing (Trend here: things that aren't my things only stay that way until I read something truly fantastic.), I could not put this book down. Even though I finished it many days ago before this review, Connell and Marianne are both still so real and weighty in my mind, just how new fictional friends usually tend to linger after a great read.

The prose is really perfect for not just the story but the characters within it. Educated and refined but also emotional and volatile. The way Rooney dissects the human condition was really fascinating to read. When I first read the ending, I wasn't sure how to think about it. At first I didn't like it but after some time passed I realized that it was the best possible ending because it fit the two of them and that's what makes it right to me.

Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher Crown Publishing, and the author Sally Rooney for the opportunity to do so.

This book was not for me.

I enjoy character driven books often. I don't need a twisty, intricate or fast-paced plot to be engaged with a novel. I do need characters I like or care about to enjoy a novel and this book challenged me in that area.

We meet Connell and Marianne when they are still in high school where their relationship begins and remains in secret. Connell's mother is the cleaning woman for Marianne's mother. This notion of class and how it influences their relationship is explored, though both of them seem to want to deny its influence.

The novel follows them through college and while they each have relationships with other people, they are inevitably drawn back to each other over and over again.

This book made me uncomfortable. Marianne's destructive behavior in sexual relationships is disturbing. Her family situation is not made explicitly clear, but there is certainly trauma.

I was frustrated by the ending. I don't always need a happily ever after, all conflicts resolved conclusion. However I found this ending abrupt. I truly don't want to say more to avoid spoilers.

It took a bit for me to become accustomed to the writing style and choices. There was dialogue, but no quotes. The chapters had time stamps, but it still shifted to previous time within those chapters.

I know this is a popular author and her books have a huge audience. This one will no doubt find its audience as well, but it just doesn't include me.

Normal People by Sally Rooney is one of those books that you either love it or you don't. There were parts of the story that I enjoyed, and there were parts that I didn't. Although there is a romance between the two main characters, I appreciated that it wasn't super sappy. I liked that their relationship was realistic, and I never found myself rolling my eyes (like I sometimes do when I read about characters' romantic relationships in a story." The story isn't over the top in any way, and although it seems simple and ordinary, it is an extraordinary tale. I think I would have enjoyed this book more in my "younger" years, as I am now married with children, and often had a hard time connecting with certain aspects of the story. 3/5

I was not a big fan of this one. The story was more of a character driven one than a plot driven one and that would be fine, except for the fact that the writing style made it hard to filly connect with the characters. The narrative was in the present tense, there were no quotation marks (this made it hard sometimes to tell which character was speaking) and the author insisted on describing every little thing that the character was doing. I knew a lot about what the characters were doing, but I couldn't get inside their heads at all. I didn't really know what Connell or Marianne were thinking unless they specifically said it. I didn't really feel the chemistry between the characters and there would be months between events and then a few flashbacks, so the narrative wasn't entirely linear. I was kind of bored for most of the story. I got what the author was trying to do with making the statement that these people were in each other's lives regardless, but most of what the author was trying to do kind of fell flat for me.

I so wanted to love this one based on all of the buzz, but I found the lack of punctuation to be a big distraction from the story line and found myself trying to rush through to start a new book.

I always fall for coming-of-age stories. There’s something so relatable to the tumultuous times, the unsettling feelings we’ve all experienced, and hopefully that feeling of contentment that comes when we reach a point beyond the hardest parts.

Connell and Marianne are teens attending the same school and appear they don’t know each other, but they do. Connell’s mom works at Marianne’s house. The two could not be more different. Connell is a popular athlete, while Marianne is a loner.

The following year they are attending Trinity College. This time around, Marianne is the social one, and Connell has become shy and uncomfortable in his new social surroundings.

Connell and Marianne begin a dance. They drift apart and circle around each other, but often are brought right back together. At one point, each are veering off-path, and they have to decide if it’s worth coming together to save the other.

The writing here is my favorite, spare and intentional. There’s so much to analyze in the class differences, first loves, friendship and family dynamics explored here with nuanced skill.

Overall, this story took me so many places emotionally. I have to admit I was a bit spent by the end, but I think that illustrates how invested I was. The biggest messages are centered around being young and in love, and this is executed so well, with so much tenderness and care, so smart, that I fell in love with these characters and their story. I was enraptured and engrossed.

I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

This book is not at all what I had expected. I did not want to stop reading it but it was too emotional to read all in one sitting. This is not an easy read, especially for those that love someone a mental illness. But I would still recommend if you are looking for a book with more substance. Thanks for the ARC!