A very sad book, indeed. I really liked it, it is written beautifully and it is one of those novels that involve you so much into the story. But it is sad, it is covered by a film of depression, solitude, misery, unhappiness, inability by the two main characters to live in the "normal" world as it is being themselves.
There is a lot of leaving and getting back together between Marianne and Connell in the story, but even when they are together it also seems like the unification of two big solitude that just give you back one enormous solitude.
It made me feel unease and worried for the new generations, for my kids when they will be teenager.
Very well written, deep, sad. I'd recommend it.
Overall rating: 8 Plot: 8 Writing style: 8 Cover: 6
Title: Normal people
The Plot:
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.
The Author:
Sally Rooney was born in County Mayo and lives in Dublin. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times and The London Review of Books. She is the author of Conversations with Friends and winner of the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer Award 2017. Her second novel Normal People was published in 2018 and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She is the editor of the biannual Dublin literary magazine The Stinging Fly.