Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Blurb from Goodreads:

Connell Waldron is one of the most popular boys in his small-town high school--he is a star of the football team and an excellent student, and he is never wanting for attention from girls. The one thing he doesn't have is money. Marianne Sheridan, a classmate of Connell's, has the opposite problem. Marianne is plain-looking, odd, and stubborn, and while her family is quite well off, she has no friends to speak of. There is, however, a deep and undeniable connection between the two teenagers, one that develops into a secret relationship.

Everything changes when both Connell and Marianne are accepted to Trinity College. Suddenly Marianne is well liked and elegant, holding court with her intellectual friends, while Connell hangs at the sidelines, not quite as fluent in the language of the elite. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle each other, falling in and out of romance but never straying far from where they started. And as Marianne experiments with an increasingly dangerous string of boyfriends, Connell must decide how far he is willing to go to save his oldest friend.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a novel that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the inescapable challenges of family and friendships. Normal People is a book that you will read in one sitting, and then immediately jump up to share with your friends. 

My Review:
It has been a long time since I reviewed a five star book but I had no hesitation rating this book as high I can.  I could not put this one down and read it in two days.  I was immediately drawn in because this book felt so real to me - the language is different from anything I've ever read but it was perfect for telling this story.  Marianne and Connell both felt unique and both were so complex.  In fact, even by the end of the book I am not sure I understood either of them but I grew to love them both.  Sometimes the best books are the hardest to describe and this one is no exception but I will say - read this!

I highly recommend this to fans of literary fiction; this is a brilliant and really complex love story, not necessarily a romance but a true story of love.  Normal People comes out soon on April 16, 2019, you can purchase HERE, and I hope you consider reading this one!

For a few seconds they just stood there in stillness, his arms around her, his breath on her ear. Most people go through their whole lives, Marianne thought, without ever really feeling that close with anyone.