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Normal People Introduction of the ebook: Normal People
Đánh giá : 3.84 /5 (sao)
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal.
A At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship. …more
Review ebook Normal People
EDIT: I get it. This novel is very popular and much beloved. While I recognise that Rooney has talent, I did not vibe with NP. Please, if you hate reading reviews expressing opinions/takes/impressions from your own, well, I suggest you skip this review. There are plenty of glowing reviews out there for this novel so there really is no need for you to waste your time leaving me a comment along the lines of ‘you are wrong and here’s why’. Also, note that I wrote this review in 2018 and not recentl EDIT: I get it. This novel is very popular and much beloved. While I recognise that Rooney has talent, I did not vibe with NP. Please, if you hate reading reviews expressing opinions/takes/impressions from your own, well, I suggest you skip this review. There are plenty of glowing reviews out there for this novel so there really is no need for you to waste your time leaving me a comment along the lines of ‘you are wrong and here’s why’. Also, note that I wrote this review in 2018 and not recently.
If you believe that characters who dislike themselves, shrug a lot, and say “I don’t know” 24/7, are very deep and realistic, well this may be the perfect read for you.
Or if you enjoy reading about “in” authors…look no further.
If you are thinking about reading this novel, I suggest you listen to Crywank’s ‘Song for a Guilty Sadist’ instead, since it will take you less time and you will get the same story.
While I enjoyed Rooney’s style, the way in which she interweaves ordinary moments with emotionally charged ones and the uncertainty that pervades her story, I was also annoyed by how artificial her novel is. I had the impression that Rooney was trying to conjure a certain millennial “vibe” through her characters and their experiences.
However, the central figures of her novel, Connell and Marianne, lacked depth and, as stupid as it might sound, character. Their looks were emphasised in a way that made them “stand out” from others: they are skinny and beautiful, they smoke, they make languid movements, they are smart, and unlike their peers they actually care about world politics. Throughout the course of this novel we are told how DIFFERENT and SPECIAL they are.
Marianne comes from a wealthy and abusive family (we are supposed to feel bad for her), Connell was raised by his mother and suffers from bouts of anxiety and depression (we are also supposed to feel bad for him). That they have issues that they can’t cope with is realistic, but what I didn’t appreciate is the romanticising of their difficulties. What I didn’t like is that being “alienated” is synonym of “cool” and that seeking sadomasochistic relationships is understandable/inevitable if you come from an abusive family.
Rooney handles serious issues (eg. an abusive family, depression, etc.) very badly. A book that handles trauma and self-harming incredibly well is What Red Was by Rosie Price. There we see why the characters behave in self-destructive ways, but in NP these things seem merely props.
Marianne and Connell aren’t terrible people but god, they are so self-involved. Their relationship is made to appear fraught but I didn’t always understand why. Drama for the sake of drama? They enter forgettable relationships with equally forgettable people but they remain fixated on each other. Why? No one knows…
Marianne is depicted by the author and the other characters as being the sort of person who does not to care about others’ opinion of her but soon after a breakup with a cliched dick boyfriend she is obsessed with what people are saying about her…Connor is…intelligent? Indecisive? As interesting as a stale sandwich?!
Secondary characters and family members are barely sketched out, they have little to no purpose other than creating more “drama” for the main characters. Marianne’s family was so badly written that I had a hard time taking any of them seriously. Her brother is laughably cruel and her mother is uncaring and snobbish (they are rich so…). Friends from college serve very little purpose, other than making the main characters seem “different” and “real” (they are special, not like other people).
What I disliked the most is that by the end neither Marianne or Connell show any sort of character growth. Not that I always want to read about characters who learn from their mistakes or gain some sort of insight from their experience, I can appreciate characters who keep perpetuating their ‘bad’ behaviour or even those who get worse or regress into ‘bad’ habits/behaviour. But they have to be believable. Marianne or Connell were not. They were merely an ‘aesthetic’, more befitting as subjects of a black and white grunge photo than anything else.
The only reason why I finished this novel is that I listened to the audiobook and the narrator managed to make this otherwise unappetising storyline sort of okay.
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