Book Review: Normal People

Capturing the little interpersonal moments within a relationship that we would otherwise not notice

My book list is getting longer and longer by the day, my feeds bring me to other summer readers who are too coming out of hibernation and searching for the next good book. On a rainy Sunday afternoon, I found myself in the Target book section, a place I’d never roamed before but since successfully reading two and a half books within the last month, I thought, “Hey, why the hell not?” That’s when its cover appeared, half green and half blue, two faces staring right at me. I bought the book immediately (along with two Father's Day cards for Dad and Poppa) and by the end of the week, I fully absorbed Sally Rooney’s, Normal People. Normal People is not a story to wait on, it demands to be read in one sitting, baring a similar quote from the Washington Post on the cover. While I don’t necessarily have that kind of spare time within my week, I still managed to soak up every moment; from the shared looks of yearning to the subtle gutting quotes within this story. Normal People is one of those books that you don’t realize you’re slowly falling in love with, and you don’t know how to say it, but now you’re attached.

Normal People starts with our two main characters, Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan, two high schoolers in a small town in Ireland who begin a private and complicated romantic relationship. They come from different backgrounds, Connell is popular at school but disadvantaged financially, living with his mother who had him at 17. Meanwhile, Marianne is rich and intellectually gifted, however, she is treated poorly by her peers and even her family. The pair struggle to remain together over a long period spanning from adolescence to adulthood, weaving in and out of relationships with one another and with other even more complicated people. As complex as they may get, they still long to just be normal people, whatever that is.

Sally Rooney is unassumingly such a captivating writer. I wasn’t expecting to adore this book the way I do, it’s a page-turner like a calendar, you just have to marinate in each portion of the story. There were moments where I felt underwhelmed, second guessing the point in Marianne and Connell’s relationship, and the point in ruminating on each of their thoughts. All of a sudden I felt like I truly was Connell sitting in the therapist's chair, knowing how strained he felt admitting to feelings that until now were unacknowledged. And then out of the blue, I was Marianne, second guessing myself when calling her best friend after a fight with her brother. These people became so important to me the way characters haven’t been before, it’s not like this with other characters! 

There were so many tedious but important happenings that Rooney dwells on for long pages that had me enthralled in the whole matter, and how we are for a moment within the aftershock of a conflict and then thrown back in time to the event. I learned to adore these moments but they still surprised me each time, I also learned to love the absence of quotations, which further added to the medley of emotional descriptions and beautiful dialogue. I found that stylistically, some aspects of the casual conversations felt unrealistic, they consisted of surface level observations that I couldn’t imagine being said. However, this book isn’t entirely imaginative, it’s intended to be read like a memory, so some events can be told hazily. I still hold some resentment for the way Marianne is occasionally personified as an animal when Connell keeps his humanity. I understand the implication of this however it wouldn’t’ve bothered me had she not been a woman and Connell, a man. This indicates the power struggle between the two and the mistreatment of Marianne furthered, I believe that if there was a redemption of this characterization it wouldn’t still bother me as much.

Now I want to speak on characterization and development. Throughout Normal People, I was carried through exactly what I believe the necessary feelings were to have about Marianne and Connell. So many of their failures within the relationship lie within their misconceptions which adapt from their vices. It’s easy to assume that with the proper communication, they could’ve lived happily ever after, but I don’t think so. I feel by the end of the book (spoiler alert!) we are left with the idea that these two were meant for each other when their problems remained, the ones we have already observed. The goal we envision, as hopeful lovers, is always to companionship. But I believe, what Rooney intended was that Marianne and Connell needed to overcome their relationship, as if its purpose was to save one another. I don’t entirely see relationships having this crux in my own life, but I can see that for some people going through unique struggles how having someone there for comfort can help them thrive. I found darting back and forth between Marianne and Connell with each chapter was done so effectively, it gave way to us interpreting the disconnection between them while also helping us further understand whoever’s point of view we were looking through. 

This book is incredibly quotable and you may have even heard something within the recent years that you didn’t realize came from Normal People, here are some favorites of mine:

“She would have lain on the ground and let him walk over her body if he wanted, he knew that.”

---

“Literature moves him. One of his professors calls it “the pleasure of being touched by great art.”

---

“He touches his lips to her skin and she feels holy, like a shrine. Come to bed, then, she says. He goes with her.”

---

“Generally I find men are a lot more concerned with limiting the freedoms of women than exercising personal freedom for themselves, says Marianne.”

---

“Marianne, he said, I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”

---

“No life is exactly the same. Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.”

---

“He had just wanted to be normal, to conceal the parts of himself that he found shameful and confusing. It was Marianne who had shown him other things were possible.”

---

“It’s funny the decisions you make because you like someone, he says, and then your whole life is different.”

---

“He gets up and stands in front of her. Like a trained animal she stays stock-still, every nerve bristling.”

---

“It’s not like this with other people. Well, I like you a lot more than other people.”

My takeaway? Normal People is worth the soft hype it has received. I’ve seen countless amounts of “romanticization” of this coupling which may not be the main take away, but it aids in the mystique of what Normal People is really about. See, we can’t help but long for love, even if the relationship is fictional, making the idea of failed romance seem unappealing. But I’m a sucker for it, maybe there were times in my life when this would’ve stung more but after lots of transitions, I’ve come to appreciate the more somber aspects of love. I’m so grateful to have added this book to my shelf alongside other keepsakes, I also have told my closest people that I want them to read this book too, I just want to talk about it. I also began watching the Hulu series last night, I can’t get enough of it. I wasn’t sure if this kind of story could translate to cinema but it makes sense to me in an episodic sense, however, I’m so used to turning the page and seeing something new which makes it difficult to not binge. Since I just started watching it, I won’t say much, but so far it’s stylistically very similar to how I envisioned the book. This story will stick with me, it isn’t entirely unique but it is iconic, from now on I’ll think to myself: That’s so Normal People.