A review by pvrting
Normal People by Sally Rooney

emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

this book has so many layers i can’t possibly cover them all in one review, so story-wise i will only say that the end felt wrong- not because it wasn’t good, but because after getting snippets over the span of 4 years into these characters lives, parting with the insight into their relationship left me kind of empty.

regarding the writing style, as someone with the bad habit of skimming, i found that the constant time jumps and nonuse of dialog marks made me have to really focus on what i was reading, and i didn’t skip over parts as often as i usually do.

regarding the political commentary- i read some reviewers to whom it felt performative, but i think it’s smart the way she casually merges capitalism critique into the story. the class difference between the main characters (marianne having a bourgeoisie upbringing, and connell coming from a working class background), in my opinion, does take a big part into how they interact with each other. 

marianne’s urge to “belong” to connell can be interpreted as an attempt to make them feel like equals by lowering herself “below” his level, something connell can’t really give to her, because she will always have a social-economic advantage over him, as we see, for example, in their reactions to the scholarships they’re awarded: “for marianne, who doesn’t pay her own rent or tuition and has no real concept of how much these thing cost, it’s just a matter of reputation” juxtaposed with connell’s “everything is possible now because of the scholarship. his rent is paid, his tuition is covered, he has a free meal every day (…). for him the scholarship is a gigantic material fact”.

i commented to my friend, which i buddy-read this with, how i was shocked that people didn’t made more of a fuss about communism theory in a book that got so popular, and they pointed out that some of the readers probably skipped pass the social-class struggles and analysis integrated in the story. if you did, i am begging you to give it another read, taking a closer look into the class consciousness blended in the main character’s lives and relationships.