Normal People

Normal People, while a coming-of-age novel about first love, is not a romance. The story is written with insight into two protagonists, Marianne and Connell, which lends a sort of he-said, she-said quality to the narrative. Each chapter moves us a little deeper into what each of them is thinking and feeling. Each chapter is also a time jump, advancing us as little as five minutes or as much as seven months into the future. In this novel, character is plot, and I found it both fascinating and frustrating to observe Marianne and Connell and the way they often talked but failed to communicate. Rooney’s simple yet distinct writing style, filled with comma splices and no quotation marks, took some getting used to but eventually began to sound like a friend telling a story: life-like, intimate, vulnerable. I’m impressed and grateful not to be offended that Sally Rooney has been called the voice of my generation. —Anika (Tom liked it too last year, even though it's not his generation)