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A review by fyrier
Normal People by Sally Rooney
2.0
I got the book because of the great reviews I had been seeing online. And I couldn't disagree more.
I was tempted to leave the book unfinished several times. Everything about it pulled me away from continuing it. I'll try to break the main points that made it so dull for me.
First of all, the text. There isn't a single quotation mark or paragraph break in the dialogues. At first I was okey with it, but it's difficult to follow the pace when they're jumping between dialogue and narration and you have to figure out even who is talking to who.
Second, the time skips. I like that there are time skips between the chapters, it is well indicated and I know that something might have happened that I missed in that skip. But, when these jumps happen (once again) during a narration, where they go back a few weeks and then jump back to the present, with little to no explanation, again, makes the story hard to follow.
Finally, and most importantly, the characters. They are plain, simple, with little to no depth and almost no evolution throughout the whole story. I like how some tables turn from the jump from high school to college for both main characters, but other than that, there is no progression for them. They just go in circles around the same topics again and again and again. It's almost infuriating seeing how they go running towards the same brick wall throughout the whole story.
I didn't even like how the story concludes. It's almost as if they didn't change much throughout the story and two really relevant stages of their lives as high school and college are, and considering everything they have to go through.
I don't often say this, but I truly regret the time I spent on this story. I don't think I will be reading much from the author.
I was tempted to leave the book unfinished several times. Everything about it pulled me away from continuing it. I'll try to break the main points that made it so dull for me.
First of all, the text. There isn't a single quotation mark or paragraph break in the dialogues. At first I was okey with it, but it's difficult to follow the pace when they're jumping between dialogue and narration and you have to figure out even who is talking to who.
Second, the time skips. I like that there are time skips between the chapters, it is well indicated and I know that something might have happened that I missed in that skip. But, when these jumps happen (once again) during a narration, where they go back a few weeks and then jump back to the present, with little to no explanation, again, makes the story hard to follow.
Finally, and most importantly, the characters. They are plain, simple, with little to no depth and almost no evolution throughout the whole story. I like how some tables turn from the jump from high school to college for both main characters, but other than that, there is no progression for them. They just go in circles around the same topics again and again and again. It's almost infuriating seeing how they go running towards the same brick wall throughout the whole story.
I didn't even like how the story concludes. It's almost as if they didn't change much throughout the story and two really relevant stages of their lives as high school and college are, and considering everything they have to go through.
I don't often say this, but I truly regret the time I spent on this story. I don't think I will be reading much from the author.