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A review by 2hannon
Normal People by Sally Rooney
5.0
i love this book. everything about it is just wow. after reading it i still think about it here and there, it has almost encapsulated my mind. the concept, the characters, the WRITING. this was a great introduction to sally’s work, i’m very keen on reading her other books and her future projects.
i love how sally writes, specifically how she portrays a character’s interiority. the way she writes about thoughts is so interesting to me, i found myself relating to the characters in different parts of the book, most notably Connell. not to mention, how she describes surroundings:
“Cherries hang on the dark-green trees like earrings.”
“The cherries hang around them gleaming like so many spectral planets.”
“Outside her breath rises in a fine mist and the snow keeps falling like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistake
back to how sally writes about one’s thoughts, i found Connell’s opinion on pretentious, status-seeking students at Trinity:
“It was culture as class performance literature fetishise for its ability to take educated people on force emotional journeys so that they may afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they like to read about.”
i had always felt this but never had the lexical ability to put it into words, but sally did it so well, it blew my mind.
the communication in the novel is what seems to divide people on whether or not they like the book. i’ve read reviews in which people have expressed disdain or annoyance in the miscommunication between Marianne and Connell; but that’s the whole point. in reference to the title, normal people miscommunicate! i was intrigued by how their reluctances, body language and simple conversation were written. i found it to be quite realistic.
i love thé dynamic between Marianne and Connell. i would like to note though, that i don’t think it is fully ‘healthy’, but the way it works is very thought provoking of our own relationships in real life. i do appreciate the more positive aspects of their relationship, namely how despite everything (social class differences, different personalities overall, etc) they are still able to come together, to truly understand one another.
another common comment i’ve heard when people negatively critique the book is that the ending was ‘not good’. i however think the contrary. if the novel had some fairytale-like resolution where they lived happily ever after, i think i would’ve been disappointed to be honest. life doesn’t end with one idealistic ending you find in stories, rather it’s a SERIES of beginnings and ends of which are not guaranteed to be happy.
despite the ending and how Connell and Marianne end up departing from each other again, i believe that in that fictional world they’ll find each other again. i also appreciate how Marianne pushes Connell to achieve his dream of writing, and I especially like how this scene was filmed in the series (in fact, i think it was done much better in the series than the book, although i do like both rest assured).
i will be thinking about this book for a while and that doesn’t usually happen to me after i read a book.
i love how sally writes, specifically how she portrays a character’s interiority. the way she writes about thoughts is so interesting to me, i found myself relating to the characters in different parts of the book, most notably Connell. not to mention, how she describes surroundings:
“Cherries hang on the dark-green trees like earrings.”
“The cherries hang around them gleaming like so many spectral planets.”
“Outside her breath rises in a fine mist and the snow keeps falling like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistake
back to how sally writes about one’s thoughts, i found Connell’s opinion on pretentious, status-seeking students at Trinity:
“It was culture as class performance literature fetishise for its ability to take educated people on force emotional journeys so that they may afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they like to read about.”
i had always felt this but never had the lexical ability to put it into words, but sally did it so well, it blew my mind.
the communication in the novel is what seems to divide people on whether or not they like the book. i’ve read reviews in which people have expressed disdain or annoyance in the miscommunication between Marianne and Connell; but that’s the whole point. in reference to the title, normal people miscommunicate! i was intrigued by how their reluctances, body language and simple conversation were written. i found it to be quite realistic.
i love thé dynamic between Marianne and Connell. i would like to note though, that i don’t think it is fully ‘healthy’, but the way it works is very thought provoking of our own relationships in real life. i do appreciate the more positive aspects of their relationship, namely how despite everything (social class differences, different personalities overall, etc) they are still able to come together, to truly understand one another.
another common comment i’ve heard when people negatively critique the book is that the ending was ‘not good’. i however think the contrary. if the novel had some fairytale-like resolution where they lived happily ever after, i think i would’ve been disappointed to be honest. life doesn’t end with one idealistic ending you find in stories, rather it’s a SERIES of beginnings and ends of which are not guaranteed to be happy.
despite the ending and how Connell and Marianne end up departing from each other again, i believe that in that fictional world they’ll find each other again. i also appreciate how Marianne pushes Connell to achieve his dream of writing, and I especially like how this scene was filmed in the series (in fact, i think it was done much better in the series than the book, although i do like both rest assured).
i will be thinking about this book for a while and that doesn’t usually happen to me after i read a book.