I had so many conflicted feelings when I finished this book. Then I watched the limited streaming series and had more conflicted feelings, but not the same feelings, exactly. And then the New York Times published their best books of the twenty-first century and then the people’s choice, and there was Normal People again, not to mention that my daughter saw me with a copy and was like “That is one of my all-time favorite books!” Here’s my very abbreviated two cents: it’s a realistically swirling tale, told with impressive, clear prose.

A love story told over a number of years, Marianne and Connell cross paths because Connell’s mum works for Marianne’s. In school, they stay far away from each other; well, everyone stays away from the wealthy and strange and aloof Marianne. But there is something about her that Connell can’t resist, and when they become closer, they hide it from the outside world. But Marianne inspires Connell to follow her to Trinity College before they fall apart. A year later, there they are, away from their hometown and together with their relationship in tatters. It’s the second iteration of their friendship, a relationship that will change a few times as Marianne becomes sought-after in college when Connell now feels lonely. Then Marianne deals with childhood trauma by self-destructing while Connell stumbles upon success. No matter what, they can never seem to avoid one another for long, and they wouldn’t want to.

I’m going to be honest; I don’t always know what’s going on in the book world. I don’t know what it is about the book Normal People—it could have been the immediate and repetitive appearance on the summer reads tables at the bookstores since its publication in 2018—but I thought this was an older book. Like the 90s, at the latest. And it actually can read that way. (I had to hit the first obvious reference to modern times to know I wasn’t in the 80s, actually). And with a name like Sally Rooney? Where I come from, this is an older name. Plus, how accomplished she is. And with a 2020 streaming series and all the hype and everything… yeah. I had no idea what I was about to read.

It has been on my radar and my TBR for some time, however. So when I was out of town and looking for a kinda light and easy read for a writing conference bedtime, I grabbed this one. If you are laughing because I said light and easy, then please understand I was in a hurry in the bookstore. Also, I did find the book to go down real easy. And in its way, it is light. Like in its presentation of some very heavy issues and an ultimately serious and emotional relationship. In fact, I found the presentation so light that I didn’t even entertain the idea of crying or gasping; I was a cold fish about all the horrible and sad things. Except maybe when the communication went bad sometimes (and it so often went so, so bad) and during one particular scene with Marianne and a new boyfriend; those couple times I was respectively frustrated and fuming mad.

Let’s just deal with the notes I jotted down after reading it, one at a time:

• The portrayal of writers and the writing life is (once again) all wrong. Connell stumbles into writing, has no real stick-to-it-tiveness about it, and then the first person he ever approaches with a work begs him to let her publish it? It goes beyond that, too, but I don’t want to give too much away. Perhaps this is O’Farrell’s life, but I tired of romanticized versions of writing as a career a long time ago.
• This is Ireland and Irish culture. Don’t forget this is not an American book, people. It might help if every time they say “Jesus,” think “JAY-zuss!”
• There are some unnecessary choices Rooney made that are very popular as a writing style, especially in Ireland. However, with Rooney at the helm I was not the least bit confused and rarely distracted by the lack of quotation marks, present tense, etc. That is saying something about her skill. But I still don’t know why we are writing without conventional grammar and outside of usual writing style. Is it some sort of rebellion thing? Protesting the colonizer? I’m making stuff up.
• The tense changes. Because the story slips around in time so much: that’s why it’s done. I think. A reader can use these changes to understand if they are in the “present” of the story or the past, but it can be disorienting and maddening, too. I can see how some people might hate it and how it can feel arbitrary. Perhaps a more obvious way of delineating between present and past? Like headers or something?
• I definitely agree that all the characters except Marianne, Connell, and Lorraine were so, so flat. I got really confused who people were because I had zero invested in the side characters. Maybe Rachel I remembered, and the nicer friend, Joanna. I really could have used more clarification, more knowing who people were and what they looked like. Peggy really confused me because I had an idea of her from the little I was given and then it kept having to change. I wanted way more of Lorraine. And the story doesn’t really work right (in the end) without more of Alan and Denise.
• It’s a Millennial novel. So there’s that. Millennials might enjoy it more, relate to its style and ideas more (including political ideas, dysthymia, sexual ideas….).

Ultimately, I was taken with the tightness of the writing, the skill of it. But by midway I wasn’t sure I trusted the experience. And by the end I was uncomfortable, and not in a good way. I was really concerned for Marianne’s character, her story arc, the flippancy with which she takes a downward spiral of self-hate and disassociation-to-the-point-of-blankness and shrugs and says well we all submit to someone, right? So why not just take all that hot mess and submit to someone who loves me? What the hell. There is some kernel of wisdom to this conclusion, but Marianne is in no way at the point to learn or to accept this, as a character. Which is, arguably, why Rooney gave us the ending that she did. (The ending is definitely a sore point for many people.) Still, I felt little emotional involvement beside irritation at the situation the characters were in, because character development was lacking in a way that made the story, ultimately, unbelievable. I’m not the only person to feel this way.

And some people absolutely love this book (including Barack Obama and Taylor Swift, I am told). I just landed more in the middle.

Warnings, for sure: abuse, graphic sex, disordered eating, suicide, suicidal ideations, depression… There might be some others, too. There’s some real heavy content in this book even though it doesn’t read that heavy. Still, the content is there.

Sally Rooney is a well-adored, Irish writer, even though she only has three novels. They are, of course, Normal People (her most popular, so far), Conversations with Friends, and Beautiful World, Where Are You. Normal People won a bunch of awards and was short-listed for the Mann Booker Prize. Rooney was named the Young Writer of the Year by The Sunday Times in 2017. In 2022, Time named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. She co-wrote the adaptation for the TV series for Normal People. Interesting factoid: she has an MA from Trinity in American Literature. She wrote Conversations with Friends during her MA program. She is involved in politics, some, as a feminist and Marxist.

There are some interviews and articles to listen to and read at her publisher’s page HERE.

Her next novel, Intermezzo, will be published in September. It contains (centrally) an affair and a relationship between an older man and a young woman, which means I will probably be avoiding it (as I have already read like three of those this year. And, uh-no.) In the pre-pub material, Sally Rooney is called a “global phenomenon.” Which I suppose she is.

“Nothing could be further from his mind than committing mass murder. He feels guilty after he stammers a word on the phone” (p209).

“Not for the first time Marianne thinks cruelty does not only hurt the victim, but the perpetrator also, and maybe more deeply and more permanently” (p232).

“She hates the person she has become, without feeling any power to change anything about herself” (p244).

As mentioned, Rooney co-wrote on an (Emmy) award-winning, 12-part limited series for Normal People. I think the story and characters actually do better as the show, but the merit of the piece as a book—the language, the looping plot, etc.—does better as a book. There is an insane amount of explicit sex in both the book and series, and I leave it to you to determine whether or not you can handle those things in either form. (Talking full-on nudity and beginning-to-end sex in the series.) As well as all the other “warnings” that I listed above. But I really appreciated being able to see the settings and get the characters straight (especially with subtitles). Then again, if I had just seen the series I would have balked at it, first for the gratuitous sex and then for its dysthymia, melancholy, slowness. It’s like the two things work in tandem. They did try to catch the lyrical looping by making some episodes begin with the end of the episode and then go back. I liked that though it felt forced after the first couple times—and yet I wouldn’t change it; in fact, I would have done it for every episode. Did they do it for every episode? I didn’t notice until a few in.