Normal People: A Review

My Rating:  ★★★★★ 

❝ He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. ❞

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Sally Rooney's novel Normal People is about Marianne and Connell, their secret friendship, and their on-again, off-again relationship. They are two young people who are drawn to each other, drift apart at times, but always return to each other throughout their lives.

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Normal People is a book that is focused on the themes of mental health, social classes and love. The main characters of the novel are Marianne, a young girl who is often bullied and ostricised by her secondary school classmates, whilst also suffering abuse from her family and Connell, one of the most popular boys in school but despite his immense popularity he is very insecure of himself and struggles with anxiety.

The book itself is mainly focuses Connell and Marianne's bond, however it does branch out and talk about topics of mental health as Connell suffers from anxiety and depression in his universty years of life. The book also discusses abuse, as Marianne is abused by her brother, and bullying as the reader watches how Marianne is bullied by her peers.

Sally Rooney also touches upon the wealth disparity between Marianne and Connell as Connell's mother goes around to clean Marianne's house. This is also displayed when the pair talk about how little Marianne's mother pays Connell's mother Lorriane. “I don’t think she pays Lorraine very well”, says Marianne. “No, she pays her fuck all”.

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 In Conclusion,  I very much so enjoyed this book. It has become one of my favourite reads this entire summer, it discusses many different topics in a very intmate and beautiful way. I believe readers who enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh may also enjoy this book as I saw many similarites between the protaganist and Marianne.

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