Book Review - Normal People by Sally Rooney

 Whilst everyone and their dog became enchanted by the portrayal of Connell and Marianne when Normal People was realised as a TV adaptation at the start of lockdown, I remember hearing mixed reviews about the book. Some liked the medium, some just couldn't get on board with the writing style. As someone who watched the TV adaptation long before I picked up this book, I can remember wondering just how the narrative could have ever lent itself to book-form. 

The story is so simple yet so brilliant and captures two teens on their journey's out of sixth-form into University and just beyond. It touches on class divide, modern love, miscommunication, lack of awareness, and how some souls seem to touch and change each other irrecoverably. This is the story of 'Normal People'. Whilst Connell is popular and well liked at school, Marianne is on the edges and guarded. Whilst Connell painstakingly cares about what other's think, Marianne doesn't see the benefits of social conformity or why fitting in is so valuable. 

Whilst both characters are in some way worlds apart, they are joined by differing trauma, shared world views, and simply love and trust. They read each other in a way no one else can, they can tell each other exactly how they feel even if they can't share those feelings with a single other. They are in short exactly what the other wishes they could be more of. No matter how much time weaves between them, something brings them on connecting paths even if those paths look completely different as the years pass by.  

This book was one that I struggled with initially, the dialogue heavy writing style being unusual for my description-loving imagination. However, after the first chapter this initial traction only made the remaining story strangely all the more captivating. 

It was one of the very best books I've ever read and it is easy to see why the Guardian labelled the novel a "Future classic". I would recommend this novel to anyone, yet I feel that it is millennials/Gen-Z readers that may associate with it's themes, discussions and characters possibly strongest. It is every bit a modern love story, with the complex misunderstandings and miscommunication to strengthen it's portrayal. A most wonderful book.