Normal People by Sally Rooney

Normal People by Sally Rooney. A love story between two unlikely people, Connell and Marianne. They are polar opposites – Connell is popular and Marianne is a loner. All they have in common is that they live in the same town. Throughout the novel, their on-and-off relationship shows the reader that opposites really attract. Somehow their different circumstances and situations does not stop them to be pulled together time and time again. Even when they are just friends, the reader can sense that they still have feelings for each other and that their other relationships are not going to last long. Or at least that is what I craved the whole book through – for them to finally to be together and to label their relationship something other than ‘casual’. Because their love is anything but casual. Rooney stirs up something in each of us by making us crave that one person who truly knows us. A raw connection between two friends/lovers. If you haven’t read this wildly popular book yet, get ready to fall in love with the characters and their love.

Rooney uses this novel to broach a sensitive and highly emotional subject. We see what effects emotional and physical abuse has on a person, especially mentally. In this novel, Marianne experiences sibling abuse (physical and emotional) and this somehow influences what type of love she  thinks she deserves and she allows her romantic counterparts to use her and letting them know that they can do anything they want to her (especially in sexual contexts) and she would not stop them. And somehow, she finds herself in these relationships again and again. Connell is the only one who knows what type of love she deserves and that she should be treated with respect and that she deserves someone who does not physically or emotionally hurt her.

Disclaimer: Normal People is beautifully written and the love story frustrates and excites you at the same time. Sally Rooney is pure genius, BUT…

the craze of Normal People has been circulating for a while now and every review raved about how amazing it was and that it is something you have never seen before. So, when you are in an environment where Normal People receives such high acclaim, you have quite high expectations for the novel. That is the problem with expectations – you expect something amazingly wonderful and then you are let down because in your head you imagined something so much better. So, this is of course not Sally Rooney’s fault at all. She is an amazing writer and I would even go so far to say that she is a genius. This is more about overly positive reviews which create expectations for a book. I also have to mention that in this book she does not use quotation marks for the discourse in the story and some people have lifted their concerns about it. I guess that would bother some people, but it wasn’t much of a problem for me. It could confuse you if you can’t differentiate between what is said and what is described. That wasn’t too much of a problem for me, but this is just a warning if some of you think this would be a problem for you. Further, the novel was pretty good. Sometimes Connell and Marianne infuriated me with their choices, but the fact that an author can make you feel that type of emotions is just another indication of how good of an author Sally Rooney is.

So, this book is definitely recommended. I know most of the population has already read it. But if you are of the rare few who hasn’t read it, go ahead. What are you waiting for? Go read a book that will simultaneously confuse, excite, infuriate and frustrate you.