Review - Normal People by Sally Rooney

Why hello everyone!

I have A LOT to catch you up on, you may have noticed that I haven't posted in.... quite a while. WELL university got really hectic and I didn't really have time for reading but now I do as I've finished (AND I'M GRADUATING WITH A FIRST).

I hope the lockdown wherever you are hasn't been too horrible and that you're coming out the other side.

I would like to talk about Normal People by Sally Rooney today. But first, as usual, here's the blurb curtsy of the Waterstones website.

'Marianne is the young, affluent, intellectual wallflower; Connell is the boy everyone likes, shadowed by his family’s reputation and poverty. Unlikely friends, and later lovers, their small town beginnings in rural Ireland are swiftly eclipsed by the heady worlds of student Dublin. Gradually their intense, mismatched love becomes a battleground of power, class, and the falsehoods they choose to believe.

Normal People is a tale of deceptive simplicity, a very accessible narrative of two seemingly mismatched young people who share a profound, inescapable understanding. Beyond that however is something properly universal, a study of how one person can forever shape and impact another. Marianne and Connell emerge almost shockingly real and deeply vulnerable in their different ways.'

I had heard a bunch of good things about this book and really wanted to watch the series but didn't want to watch it without having read the book

At first, I'm not going to lie, I did not like it. I really just didn't get on with Rooney's writing style as she doesn't use speech marks - this I found a bit jarring to begin with. It was difficult to tell what was a thought and what was actual speech.

As I got through the book I found that I had gotten used to it. I found the main characters Marianne and Connell to be average characters. For me, it felt like Marianne in the beginning was trying to be too 'edgy' - but she got better! Connell was also not your 'average cool guy', he had more complexity which I did like.

My only other criticism of this book was that everything started happening at the end and I JUST WANTED TO KNOW MORE.

For me this book was enjoyable, but only at the end! Maybe it was the writing style that didn't do it for me, I'm not sure, but if you are a fan of books such as Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell you'd definitely like this book.

Overall its a 3 star book for me!