Normal People

by Sally Rooney, Sally Rooney

paperback

English language

Published Oct. 29, 2018 by Faber & Faber.

ISBN:: 978-0-571-34729-2

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years.

This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person's life - a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us - blazingly - about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege. Alternating menace with overwhelming tenderness, Sally Rooney's second novel breathes fiction with new life.

15 editions

faticake reviewed Normal People by Sally Rooney

Uninteresting and poorly written

2 stars

I wouldn't have read this book if it wasn't our book club pick, because I'm not into romance, so I did go into this book with prejudice, knowing I probably wouldn't like it.

With that being said, I didn't expect that the prose would be that bad. I read "A lot of people really hated her," among many others, and couldn't believe how popular this book was supposed to be. If the writing was at least better, I wouldn't have minded the mundane love story as much.

I wouldn't have read this book if it wasn't our book club pick, because I'm not into romance, so I did go into this book with prejudice, knowing I probably wouldn't like it.