Reviews with content warning for Grief - Normal People

Me ha gustado? Sí. Creo que podría haber estado mejor? También. Gente normal me ha dejado con sentimientos encontrados. Entiendo todo el appeal que tiene, a mí también me lo ha hecho sentir. Pero por otro lado, hay cosas que no me cuadran. Los personajes en realidad están vacíos, trata temas muy importantes de forma un poco pobre. No sé. Creo que hay oportunidades perdidas aquí.

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hulimoon's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’m so heartbroken. I thought this book would help me with what I am going through…, but it was quite the opposite.

“I don’t know what is wrong with me … I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people” “I don’t know why I can’t make people love me…” (page 187) The fact that she said that and felt exactly what I’m feeling now just broke me.

Marianne is a wonderful character. Everyone thinks she is weird but she is only misunderstanded. She just doesn’t care (or shows it is so) what people think of her, or worries about plain things. She wants to find love and be surrounded by people who care about her. AND IT’S NOT THAT MUCH.

There is also Connel, a character I didn’t like until I started to understand that he was like Marianne in a different way. He was looking for that safe place like her.

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I hated every person in Marianna’s life. I hated her mother, her f brother, her dad even tho he wasn’t alive, and her friends. WHAT THE A OF PEOPLE.

I don’t know yet how I feel about Connel and Marianne’s relationship but also I haven’t had in my life a worthy relationship so… I’m not going to say anything bad…

And Sally Rooney knows what she did to people writing that ending. She thought “If the book has to end then also your emotional stability”.

Content Warnings

kylasmv15's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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sydlexi's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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gdulecki's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I’m giving this a begrudging three stars - I did not like the characters, there were no quotation marks, and the writing style felt weird, but I also couldn’t put this down and read it in just a couple of hours because it was so captivating. I am so angry at the ending, Marianne needs some damn therapy, and the self sabotage and self degradation was so potent that I feel it in my bones after finishing the book. The way BDSM was portrayed was horrendous, and I think it was supposed to be??? I don’t know man I see why people really liked this but I don’t know if it was for me

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squeakypenguin's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Oh my god!! Absolutely adored this book, I just could not put it down I had to find out about these two characters and what happens to them. I loved seeing their povs and how they perceived each other. It was beautiful to see their transformation of becoming adults annd how they developed their personalities due to the things they were going through. It was like I was reading about 2 real life people.

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cleotheo's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

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everythingeatsandiseaten's review against another edition

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emotional reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

beautifully written at times but adds really nothing at all to the romance trope. i find that the romanticization of marianne in particular as isolated, traumatized, etc. can come off in quite an ignorant manner. however i do think this is purposeful because we view as she herself (and connell), but if not understood correctly can possibly be interpreted as a glamorization of her suffering.
much of contemporary romance, especially from the 2000s and onwards feels like a wet dream— on one hand you have dark romance & monster smut, in the middle the absolute disgrace of colleen hoover, and on the other you get esoteric nonsense that fosters individuality through romanticizing mental illness and trauma.
not to say normal people is the extreme fault of the latter at all; i’d say the biggest fault i find is within its predictability, although i wasn’t quite expecting originality from a booktok recommended novel! to give credit where credit is due, i thought rooney did a wonderful job of creating a realistic romance, however idyllic. she has so much capability with dialogue and the natural cadences of body language and movement and conversation, which is beautiful for preserving culture in a time where human nature and behavior has advanced so much and become so complex!

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