Irish writer Sally Rooney marked her debut in the literary world with her 2017 novel
Conversations With Friends which garnered great reviews. Her second novel
Normal People is equally engaging; it was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize and the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Normal People is Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron's story, who grow-up in a small town in rural Ireland. But they are from two different worlds: Marianne comes from a wealthy yet cold family, while Connell's family is poor yet rich in kindness and love. From high-school to Trinity College in Dublin, theirs is an on-and-off relationship filled with misunderstandings. It is their shared anxiety about having “normalcy” in their lives which bonds them time and again. The story captures modern-day love and the emotion of how, sometimes, it can be so difficult to express our feelings to others. While Marianne and Connell haven't been a 'couple' in the conventional sense, over a period of time they realise how much a person can change the other's life.
This bitter-sweet love story might be relatable to many millennials who face 'complicated' love issues.
How critics view the book:
Eliana Dockterman writes for
Time.com, "Sex and money clash in Sally Rooney’s modern romance 'Normal People'."
Heller Mcalpin writes for
Npr.org, "Normal People is a compulsive, psychologically astute will-they-or-won't-they love story involving two of the most sympathetic people you're liable to meet between covers. Although hailed as a voice of millennials, Rooney offers plenty to appeal to readers across genders and generations."
Annalisa Quinn writes for
Theatlantic.com, "The author’s second novel continues a rich area of preoccupation: the strictures, and possibilities, of love under capitalism."
Kate Clanchy writes for
The Guardian, "Normal People may not be about being young right now, but better than that, it shows what it is to be young and in love at any time. It may not be absolutely contemporary, but it is a future classic."
Dwight Garner writes for
The New York Times, "Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’ explores intense love across social classes."
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