Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Normal People

A very interesting, detailed character study of (to perhaps slightly oversimplify the matter) 2 lonely, depressed introverts — one who lets his anxiety and need for social approval damage his relationships, and one whose simultaneous detachment from people in general and intense attachment to a particular few (or one) is the clear and direct result of a perpetually unloving family — that I think is still broadly relatable to anyone who’s ever really struggled with relationships or self-worth (i.e. probably most people).

Has a particularly interesting emphasis on privacy and on the gap/s between what we say, what we think and what we feel.

A book I’ll certainly be thinking about for some time.

Also — I highly recommend listening to the soundtrack of the TV adaptation (which I’ve not yet seen) while reading — this very much elevated the experience for me.

Some of my favourite quotes:

“Connell is silent again. He leans down and kisses her on the forehead. I would never hurt you, okay? he says. Never. She nods and says nothing. You make me really happy, he says. His hand moves over her hair and he adds: I love you. I’m not just saying that, I really do. Her eyes will up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she’s aware of this now, while it’s happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life.” (p. 44).
“It wasn’t the first time he’d had the urge to tell Marianne that he loved her, whether or not it was true, but it was the first time he’d given in and said it. He noticed how long it took her to say anything in response, and how her pause had bothered him, as if she might not say it back, and when she did say it he felt better, but maybe that meant nothing. Connell wished he knew how other people conducted their private lives, so that he could copy from example.” (pp. 48-49).
“Denise decided a long time ago that it is acceptable for men to use aggression towards Marianne as a way of expressing themselves. As a child Marianne resisted, but now she simply detaches, as if it isn’t of any interest to her, which in a way it isn’t. Denise considers this a symptom of her daughter’s frigid and unlovable personality. She believes Marianne lacks ‘warmth’, by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her.” (p. 65).
“He’s not the same anxious, repressed person he was in school, when his attraction to her felt terrifying, like an oncoming train, and he threw her under it.” (p. 81).
“She senses there are things he isn’t saying to her. She can’t tell if he’s holding back a desire to pull away from her, or a desire to make himself more vulnerable somehow.” (p. 93).
“The conversations that follow are gratifying for Connell, often taking unexpected turns and prompting him to express ideas he had never consciously formulated before. They talk about the novels he’s reading, the research she studies, the precise historical moment that they are currently living in, the difficulty of observing such a moment in process. At times he has the sensation that he and Marianne are like figure-skaters, improvising their discussions so adeptly and in such perfect synchronisation that it surprises them both. She tosses herself gracefully in the air, and each time, without knowing how he’s going to do it, he catches her.” (p. 97).
“In a series of emails they exchanged recently about their own friendship, Marianne expressed her feelings about Connell mainly in terms of her sustained interest in his opinions and beliefs, the curiosity she feels about his life, and her instinct to survey his thoughts whenever she feels conflicted about anything. He expressed himself more in terms of identification, his sense of rooting for her and suffering with her when she suffers, his ability to perceive and sympathise with her motivations.” (p. 162).
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, says Marianne. I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people. / Her voice sounds oddly cool and distant, like a recording of her voice played after she herself has gone away or departed for somewhere else. / In what way? he says. / I don’t know why I can’t make people love me. I think there was something wrong with me when I was born. / Lots of people love you, Marianne. Okay? Your family and friends love you. / For a few seconds she’s silent and then she says: You don’t know my family.” (p. 181).
“The more slowly she eats, and the more consideration she gives to the composition of her food, the less hungry she feels.” (p. 185).
“Deer are kind of strange looking creatures. In the night they have a ghostly appearance and their eyes can reflect headlights in a love green or silver colour, like a special effect. They paused to observe our taxi before moving on. To me it’s weird when animals pause because they seem so intelligent, but maybe that’s because I associate pausing with thought. Deer are elegant anyway I have to say. If you were an animal yourself, you could do worse than be a deer. They have those thoughtful faces and nice sleek bodies. But they also kind of startle off in unpredictable ways. They didn’t remind me of you at the time but in retrospect I see a similarity there. I hope you’re not offended by the comparison. I would tell you about the party prior to us getting the taxi through Phoenix Park but it was honestly boring and not as good as the deer. No one was there who you would know that well. Your last email was really good, thank you. I look forward to hearing more as always.” (p. 187).
“Literature, in the way it appeared at these public readings, had no potential as a form of resistance to anything. Still, Connell went home that night and read over some notes he had been making for a new story, and he felt the old beat of pleasure inside his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.” (pp. 221-222).
“Not for the first time Marianne thinks cruelty does not only hurt the victim, but the perpetrator also, and maybe more deeply and more profoundly. You learn nothing very profound about yourself simply by being bullied; but by bullying someone else you learn something you can never forget.” (p. 226).
“Sometimes Marianne goes on day trips to Dublin, and she and Joanna wander around the Hugh Land together with bare arms, drinking from bottles of water. Joanna’s girlfriend Evelyn comes along when she’s not studying or working, and she’s always painstakingly kind to Marianne and interested to hear about her life. Marianne is so happy for Joanna and Evelyn that she feels lucky even to see them together, even to hear Joanna on the phone to Evelyn saying cheerfully: Okay, love you, see you later. It gives Marianne a window onto real happiness, though a window she cannot open herself or ever climb through.” (pp. 227-228).
“I’ve been lonely my whole life, really. / Connell nods, frowning. Yeah, he says. I know what you mean.” (p. 231).
“I’m just nervous, he says. I feel like it’s pretty obvious I don’t want you to leave. / In a tiny voice she says: I don’t find it obvious what you want.” (p. 235).
“From a young age her life has been abnormal, she knows that. But so much is covered over in time now, the way leaves fall and cover a piece of earth, and eventually mingle with the soil. Things that have happened to her then are buried in the earth of her body. She tries to be a good person. But deep down she knows she is a be person, corrupted, wrong, and all her efforts to be right, to have the right opinions, to say the right things, these efforts only disguise what is buried inside her, the evil part of herself.” (p. 241).
“He has sincerely wanted to die, but he has never sincerely wanted Marianne to forget about him. That’s the only part of himself he wants to protect, the part that exists inside her.” (p. 248).
“Marianne’s life happens strictly in the real world, populated by real individuals. She thinks of Connell saying: People are a lot more knowable than they think they are. But still he has something she lacks, an inner life that does not include the other person.” (pp. 257-258).
“Every day, in the ordinary activity of their lives, he showed patience and consideration for her feelings. He took care of her when he was sick, he read drafts of her college essays, he sat and listened while she talked about her ideas, disagreeing with herself out loud and changing her mind. But did he love her? Sometimes she felt like saying: Would you miss me, if you didn’t have me anymore? She had asked him that once on the ghost estate, when they were just kids. He had said yes then, but she’d been the only thing in his life at that time, the only thing he had to himself, and it would never be that way again.” (p. 258).
“It was so unlike him to behave that way in public that he must have been doing it on purpose, to please her. How strange to feel herself so completely under the control of another person, but also how ordinary. No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not. She knows he loves her, she doesn’t wonder about that anymore.” (p. 262).
“I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you. / It’s true, she thinks, he wouldn’t be. He would be somewhere else entirely, living a different kind of life. He would be different with women even, and his aspirations for love would be different. And Marianne herself, she would be another person completely. Would she ever have been happy? And what kind of happiness might it have been? All these years they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions. But in the end she has done something for him, she’s made a new life possible, and she can always feel good about that.” (p. 265).
“What they have now they can never have back again. But to her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.” (p. 266).

Content Warnings

sarafinley's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

Going to go stare at the wall. This really worked for me. The cyclical pattern of self sabotage from both Marianne and Connell is unshakable, and yet I want them to keep trying.

Content Warnings

startjpw23's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

The 2 main characters in this book are Connell and Marianne. When the book starts, they are high school students in Ireland. They start a relationship where they are sort of friends and sort of lovers, but not fully. They go to the same college. Their relationship continues the same way early on in their time in college. They are in and out of each other's lives. They are in relationships with other people at times. The story goes from there. Although this book isn't presented as a romance, a lot of people consider the relationship of Connell and Marianne a great romance. I consider it a pretty toxic romance. They both have issues, and I do sympathize, but I didn't really like them. I liked Marianne a little better than Connell, but I wasn't crazy about either of them. The writing style has some quirks. Ronney does not use quotation marks. It took me some effort to know where the story was set and when it was set. These things didn't really bother me. There is some sexual harassment. There is some abuse including a type of abuse I did not realize existed. There are some fairly graphic sex scenes. There are depictions of mental illness. The book is really well written, but overall, it wasn't really for me. I did complete it though. There was never a thought of not finishing it. I recommend this book for someone who wants to read a well written book with 2 damaged characters who navigate a difficult relationship in high school and college. Just make sure the issues I mention aren't things that concern you.

Content Warnings

nellse's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-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

5.0

❤️

Content Warnings

dearbhlanoonan's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

Content Warnings

martina_kov's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

jessicabearbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

"She was attuned to the presence of his body in a microscopic way, as if the ordinary motion of his breathing was powerful enough to make her ill"

Although I didn't love every second, this book is a masterpiece. Sally Rooney's writing style does take some getting used to and I was wary coming into reading this due to the drama about the lack of quotation marks in her writing. But I found by the end of the first chapter I wasn't bothered at all and actually liked how not even the reader knows exactly what it being said - thus reflecting the miscommunication between characters. Whether this was Sally Rooney's intent, it works, and I liked it. Please if you're put off reading this because of the style, just try. And use your own mind to decide if it works for you or not, do not let TikTok and others decide for you!

The romance is raw and frustrating. It's definitely there and it's challenging and it's sort of cute. Marianne and Connell are definitely difficult to like, as are all the characters, apart from Lorraine. The characters all had depth and I was actually frustrated not to have more backstory as to the 'why' and intentions for a lot of character's actions. Which again, was annoying but adds to the overall confusion and miscommunication. Could I justify everything Sally Rooney has chosen to do in this book? Absolutely. But that's real life and this is a story about real experiences and real people - Normal people if you will.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I can't be like normal people."

The quotes are beautiful and heartbreaking, mainly because I saw myself a lot more than I expected to throughout this story. This book definitely makes the reader feel as though they are looking in a mirror, or stood on a stage infant of everyone else. I felt exposed but safe at the same time as I could read about these dramas and heartaches happening to characters that I could see around me in the real world. I chose to annotate and used a tab for "Human Condition" which got its fair share. Sally Rooney exposes humanity and the thoughts that a lot of us choose to hide, believing foolishly that we are individual and alone in thinking them.

Part of me feels even more lost after reading this, and part of me feels found.

"But it wasn't accompanied by any specific images of what real life might look like or feel like. All she knew was that when it started, she wouldn't need to imagine it anymore".

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Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Normal People by Sally Rooney

holbeancoffeeld's review against another edition

osande's review against another edition

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lia_mills's review against another edition

sarafinley's review against another edition

startjpw23's review against another edition

nellse's review against another edition

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