Normal People by Sally Rooney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Connell and Marianne are in the same high school in Galway, Ireland but run in completely different social circles. Connell is a football player, good looking and popular. Marianne is aloof, friendless, and doesn't care what people think of her. They hook up, but Connell wants to keep things a secret. They end up both going to Trinity College in Dublin, but roles are reversed there. Marianne has found her place in college and has developed quite a group of friends. Connell on the other hand, has trouble making friends or connections beyond his roommate. Thus begins four years of getting together, hooking up, miscommunication, not saying what they are thinking, separating, and repeating this again and again.
I'm giving this book 3 stars for characters and the plot (or lack thereof). However, I give it a strong 4 stars for the way that Sally Rooney uses language to describe their feelings:
--“Being alone with her is like opening a door away from normal life and then closing it behind him.”
--“The whole trip felt like a series of short films, screened only once, and afterwards he had a sense of what they were about but no exact memories of the plot.”
--“Marianne had 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. She had that feeling in school often, but it wasn’t accompanied by any specific images of what the real life might look or feel like. All she knew was that when it started, she wouldn’t need to imagine it anymore.”
I kept wanting things to happen and for Connell and Marianne to share their feelings honestly. However, this never happened. Also, the author does not use quotation to indicate conversation. This is the first book that I've encountered like this and found it a little unsettling and difficult to get used to.
Read more of my reviews at https://thegoodreader13.blogspot.com/.
View all my reviews
