Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Normalni ludzie

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Normalni ludzie by Sally Rooney

169 reviews

sydneythekydneybean's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

In the words of Taylor Allison Swift, "I think I've seen this film before, and I didn't like the ending."

Can someone please tell me how to talk about a book that they loved reading, but also hated every painstaking moment of it? Because I have no idea. Normal People is such an interesting book because it feels like something everyone is going to have a different opinion about and no one is especially right or wrong. Everything feels so nuanced, like every shade of grey in the color wheel. Do I love it? Do I hate it? Do I love it for the parts I hated or do I hate it for the parts I loved? Take the main characters, Marianne and Connell, for example. I feel so deeply connected to them, like I know them like my own heart and see myself in them, but I don't necessaily like them. But do I not like them because I see myself in all their "bad parts?" Yeah, I think so and that's uncomfortable as fuck. Their understanding of privilege and wealth, their view of what love and self-worth looks like, the submission and sometimes humiliation in their love. It's all so fucking uncomfortable, but I think it's all necessary to explain "normal people."

People hate uncomfortability. I'll admit that I hate it. I turn my back on anything I know will make me overly sad, but I also recognize that that mindset will only keep me stagnant. Connell is uncomfortable at the idea of other people knowing about him and Marianne. Marianne is uncomfortable about Connell seeing all the bad parts she's hiding from him. But because of this, they make no progress. They stay stagnant in their uncomfortable relationship and only when they begin to leave their comfort zones do they truly grow. Honestly, the ending of Normal People is the most beautiful part of the whole book, if only for the fact that it is dripping in hope.

Connell is leaving for NYU. Marianne wants him to go, to do great things, even if she is not there to witness them. This may seem sad to most, but to me, I see nothing but promise.

Over the course of four years, I watched these two get better, get worse, hit rock bottom, lose each other, rely on each other, and love each other. That love does not come easy and it is not lost quickly. In my mind, there is not world where Connell is without Marianne and vice verse, even if that only comes in the form of the part of them they left behind in the other.

(before we finish up, may i present a mini rant. although i loved this book, i cannot, in good faith, give it five-stars solely based on how the dialogue is written. nothing feels more pretentious then writing dialogue in any way that's not with traditional quotation marks. you're not making it artsy, you're making it harder for me to read and decipher what is speech and what is action. anyway, i just needed to get that off my chest.)

Normal People crawled into my skin and made a home there, and I do not believe it will be leaving any time soon. I feel like there are any number of reasons I could have hated this book, but I didn’t. I actually kinda loved it. It's weird, it's awkward, it's depressing, but you might find yourself in the pages of that book and it might have you look back on every decision you've ever made for the sake of being comfortable.

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felishacb's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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bookishbrenbren's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This review is going to sound silly but here goes

I don't think I've read such a captivating book in a long while. I was completely immersed in the inner workings of this tiny little polarized world. It was engrossing, I couldn't put it down and when I did, I kept thinking about it. I feel invested in these characters and I think the author did an incredible job of bringing them to life and capturing what life is like when you're a teen/new adult. Especially the internal life we live inside our own heads.

on the other hand I fully agree with almost all criticisms of it that I've read 😂 the book is pretentious bordering on delivering a campy teenage movie (he's 17, a soccer star but he's top of his class but he's incredibly shy but he also recommends The Communist Manifesto to peers) and the not-like-other-girls girl even gets a makeover but not before she's read Swann's Way by herself at lunch. 👀 ok. Then also the treatment of disordered eating, classism, abuse and masochism and some light racism-makes-the-bad-guy-bad could also have been better handled. and honestly like on a very literal level, I feel silly caring who Connell Waldron asks to high school prom. But isn't it a sign of a strong writer that she can make me care about something like that? Ugh idk I am so torn. The characters are slightly cliche but nobody can write internal thought like this. I just don't know, send help 🏳️ I can't deny the pull that this book had on me and the fact that it made me feel things. I am a Marianne loyalist and I feel like I genuinely know her. She came to life for me.
But idk I guess I also expected something more serious (but less self-serious?) than this 🫣 for all the hype and marketing it got

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