⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review – Normal People by Sally Rooney⁠
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This is an intimate, raw and masterful story about the coming of age that has captivated the modern audience. Normal People, set in 2011 small-town western Ireland, from the perspective of two teenagers, inexplicably tied together despite being each other’s opposites. The two main characters, Connell and Marianne, have grown up around each other. Connell is a rugby lad, considered quite popular at school, while Marianne is headstrong and introverted, she doesn’t go along with the status quo at school and thinks herself above the rest. The pair cross paths when Connell joins his mum as she cleans Marianne’s family house, and they realise that they both feel different from their peers. This leads them to bond over books and to start a secret relationship, which Connell keeps a secret out of shame.⁠
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The story follows Marianne and Connell from their meeting at Marianne’s house, through to their secret relationship following a book exchange, which neither of them publicly admit to due to Connell’s shame and embarrassment of Marianne. After Marianne was assaulted by someone in Connell’s friends’ group and he finds out about her mental health issues, he gets scared and cuts their relationship off. Instead, he takes another girl to the Ball and Marianne ignores his calls and doesn’t return to school for the rest of the school year. ⁠
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The book has a melancholy feeling to it, as the characters’ lives often seem dark, but the perseverance of their bond, both as friends and as lovers, but always as two people who are there for each other when it matters, remains the core theme of the novel. While this isn’t the modernist masterpiece I expected, Rooney’s minimalist style of writing flows smoothly from prose to dialogue and the pacing and order of scenes help craft the plot in such a way that it keeps you reading and not wanting to put the novel down. Her style is very well-defined and reading this novel has me wanting to pick up Conversations with Friends or any further works she publishes.⁠
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