Description: Normal People, written by Sally Rooney, follows the lives of two people named Connell and Marianne. The story depicts their time in secondary school all the way to college.  Connell is presented to be a popular and a known student in secondary school. Everyone loves him, but everyone hates Marianne. Throughout secondary school she is more of a loner and bullied for the way she is. However, as their life travels into college times, Marianne and Connell switch roles of who they used to be in secondary school. As the story progresses, the dynamics of broken relationships and human connections are shown throughout these two characters’ secretive relationship that develops. 

DISCLAIMER!!!!: This article contains content warnings, trigger warnings, and spoiler warnings, as this is an in depth book article review   

  WARNING: Mild Spoilers Ahead!!

Should you read this? 

Many people have mixed opinions on this book. The book presents social connections and reactions between two different characters. The story does not have a solid plot, it is more of a character driven book. The problem people have with the book is the characters’ plotted storyline makes it feel slow and repetitive. The repetitiveness can be an anger to a lot of people because Marianne and Connell have an on and off relationship. 

Besides many mixed opinions, I personally love this book. I can get why people have a problem with the back and forth between Marianne and Connell, but it really shows how normal people act. Communication is a big thing that many struggle with throughout their entire life. Someone could have bad communication in a relationship that ultimately ends because of the lack of communication they have given to their partner. Someone could be amazing at communication, but never get the same communication in exchange . Furthermore, even with the COVID-19 pandemic taking over in 2020, we all lost human connection. Most of us stopped communicating with people because it either became weird or wasn’t an obligation anymore. 

Even though this book came out before 2020, I think that the relationship between peoples communication skills was presented greatly. Still, the way Marianne and Connell communicate show social aspects of difference. This comes from the way they were both raised and treated growing up. Eventually these differences are presented in their romantic relationship as well. 

However, it’s your choice to decide if you want to read this book depending on how you feel about slow, character driven, and realistic fiction. 

WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

      Sally Rooney’s Brilliance: 

Life is lived in different ways and perspectives. In Normal People by Sally Rooney, our two main characters Marianne and Connell do such. Marianne grows up with a rich and known family, yet they neglect her. It doesn’t help that she’s neglected by everyone at school too. On the other hand, Connell is working-class and lives with his only family member, being his mom Lorraine. However, his mom and everyone else loves him unlike Marianne. 

The way Sally Rooney writes these characters’ interactions shows how socioeconomic status affects social interactions. Marianne has never had true friends or a true relationship with anyone, until she does with Connell. Their relationship springs about when Connell starts coming over to her house, due to Lorraine being a maid for Marianne’s family. 

Their interactions are short and awkward. Marianne’s interactions can be blunt and questionable, but not because she wants them to be. For instance, within the book it deals with the topic of sextual actions. These actions are due to a pact Marianne and Connell made with each other. They would only be what’s known as friends with benefits. However, as the story progresses their romantic relationship forms. 

The way Sally Rooney incorporates this as a way to show socioeconomic stand points is brilliant. I may not be able to visually or articulate Rooney’s work as well as she can, but to further my point here’s a quote that defines this: “She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another. You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”―Normal People by Sally Rooney. 

WARNING: Be aware that below will contain HEAVY SPOILERS

      My thoughts and feelings: 

My first read of Normal People was back in April of 2021, in my 8th grade year. I don’t believe an 8th grader should have been reading this book, but I digress because it became one of my favorite books. Within my first read I was enchanted by the writing style. Sally Rooney’s writing style includes a moderate tone and no use of quotation marks within the characters dialogue. Her writing style made the story feel real to me, especially with the non-use of quotation marks, as talking in real life has no quotation marks around peoples words or sayings. When getting more of a feel to how the storyline and characters were, it felt like I was watching real people. Connell makes mistakes that put his relationships at stake. Marianne makes mistakes that damage her physically and emotionally. They both are very flawed, but they’re just normal people. That’s what I loved about my first time reading this. 

However, my second read of this book was even better than the first. I re-read the book last September (my ninth grade year). It was the best decision I could have made because I found so many more topics to discuss. 

INCOMING SPOILERS 

The story starts off with Marianne opening her door for Connell. Throughout the book this is what their relationship is. She always opens the way for him to come back to her even when it hurts them both in the end. He uses her as a way to come back to himself, as he’s never had friends or parents to be there for him. His friends are more of the conceited type wanting him to only care about them and their needs. His mom works 24/7 and as much as he can spend time with her, he doesn’t have an outlet for him to be himself. Yet, Marianne is that outlet where he can feel and be loved for having fears, ideas, and inner thoughts. As I was reading, I could see this side from Marianne, but in a different sense. She opens the door for someone that can love her for her erotic ideas, hurt, and loneliness. She has a friend and a lover beneath the door she closes and it’s something different for her. 

They’re both stuck in the position of loneliness and dread. Loneliness can feel nice and longing at times when you need to think about yourself. But to feel it is to feel as though you’re nothing. You have no one, feel none, and long for everyone. Dred can come from a multitude of things. For these two it comes from miscommunication. Marianne dreds her relationship with Connell at first, due to the lack of commitment he gave. When they were together it was more of a sextual relationship as well as a friendship. The relationship seemed to be going somewhere, but then the debs came around. 

Everyone started talking about how Connell should ask a girl named Rachel out to the debs. However, Rachel has belittled Marianne even when Marianne (TRIGGER WARNING) was sextually assaulted by a guy at a party. Connell stood up for Marianne and fought back at Rachel when this occurrence happened. Yet, he continued to ask Rachel out later to the debs. 

His actions led to a betrayal and immediately stopped the sextual relationship and friendship he had with Marianne. Overall, this led to a lot of dred of Connell´s part, due to the fact that if he were to go with Marianne he would lose all of his friends and image. 

I think this situation was greatly written in the way it shows faults. There’s so many mistakes and decisions these two characters make. They hurt each other even with the love they have for each other. It is just like other relationships someone could be going through. They could be lonely and dred their decision of ending a relationship where they felt loved or miss giving their love to someone else. 

There are so many other things I could talk about, but we would be here all day. Anyways, these are my thoughts about the book and the love I have for the book as a whole. 

       Quotes with meaning 

Throughout reading I found so many quotes that show how deeply Marianne and Connell feel about each other or themselves. I wanted to showcase these quotes, so here they are: 

1. “Marianne, he said, ” I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”– Page 117, Normal People by Sally Rooney 
2. “Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”-Page 12, Normal People by Sally Rooney 
3. “You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”- Page 239, Normal People by Sally Rooney 
4. “You make me really happy, he says. His hand moves over her hair and he adds: I love you. I’m not just saying that, I really do. Her eyes fill up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she’s aware of this now, while it’s happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life.”-Page 46; Normal People by Sally Rooney 
5. “He had thought that being with her would make him feel less lonely, but it only gave his loneliness a new stubborn quality, like it was planted down inside him and impossible to kill.”-Page 78; Normal People by Sally Rooney