REVIEW: Normal People by Sally Rooney

"She believes Marianne lacks 'warmth', by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her." - Sally Rooney

I don’t know how else to put this, but this book captured something true. The essence of something, of what exactly I’ll probably never be able to tell.

Normal People by Sally Rooney depicts the lives of Connell and Marianne, two Irish teenagers, later young adults. They share a lot of memories, a lot of pain and a big portion of regret about things (left un)said and while this it is not a fairytale, in the end it’s still a story about love.

The greatest strength of Normal People is the careful characterisation of its main characters. Where other authors get lazy or simply stop characterising after establishing their protagonist's main personality traits, Rooney never ceases to stops exploring the interior of Connell and Marianne. The most amazing thing to me is how she manages to so without making use of most known clichés.

Connell was never just shy. He was shy but also confident in his power over Marianne. He hated himself, but was still able to see that he was better than some of Marianne’s boyfriends. He was a good person overall, but an arsehole at times. The same goes for Marianne, who was described as “different” from the first time she was introduced, but never in the ridiculous “not like other girls” way that has modern female characters in such a chokehold.

The events and the “plot” are very realistic. There is no particular climax, no big secret that needs solving. Normal People is simply about two Irish teenagers growing up, growing apart, but never quite losing each other. I understand why some might find it boring, even though I think the superstructure of the book (rather than telling the whole story, there are significant chunks of time missing inbetween, each chapter providing a snapshot of the two main characters' lives at that particular point in time) managed to keep it rather engaging to read.

The book is full of big and little truths, including the beauty but also the pain of life and human connection and the burden of existing. Even though Marianne and Connell both clearly aren’t the most healthy personas, and I say that as a psychologist, many of their perspectives and opinions on life deeply resonated with me as a reader. And, while it was definitely painful to dive this deeply into the pain of being alive in a world you feel like a stranger in, it was also beautiful because nothing moves the human soul like genuine pain.

Sometimes, the story could’ve profited from some drive. Sometimes, I felt myself wishing for a point. I know that that might’ve been the point exactly, a lack of meaning, but some parts of this feel like Rooney losing herself in (her own) despite for the world, which makes some passages feel self-pitying thus borderline conceited; however, that might’ve just been me.

Overall, I recommend this book to anyone who likes reading about pain without an obvious trigger, who likes to dig a bit deeper and who doesn’t need a reason to be interested in a story. I enjoyed it all the way through, except for the ending, maybe, and I’m sure anyone willing to suffer a little bit will too.