Normal People
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Reviewed by Jess
📘📘📘
So like a lot of other people in Lockdown right now, I am obsessing over the TV adaptation of Normal People by Sally Rooney.
It’s sold over 500,000 copies in the UK and I guess that officially makes it a blockbuster but when I read it... I just didn’t love it. It’s not that I don’t love Rooney’s writing because I love that someone is writing about flawed 20 somethings like a real person, and I loved Conversations With Friends times infinity. Once I’d read NP I thought, I don’t need to read it again. I wasn’t convinced by the characters, I didn’t feel anything for them other than thinking that Marianne was selfish, and just on the bad side of annoying.
I did think it would make a good tv show or movie though, and boy how right was I. I loved this so much more than the book, I really couldn’t believe it. Something about seeing the characters bought to life in a way so true to the novel really fleshed them out for me in a way that made so much more sense. Really and truly, for me, Connell is the main character. He is so loveable, adorable, honest, tortured, emotional like you just want to hug him and keep him safe even for his flaws! As for Marianne - the show confirmed how annoying I found her in print. It really highlights how she’s so reticent to deal with her problems and her emotional state, and I understand that she has so much going on with her family (and her mom and brother are TRULY dickheads) but she keeps self-sabotaging and making horrific choices and not even trying to sort her life out, and doesn’t try to be better to Connell!
The ending made a lot more sense on screen too. I found the book to be too open-ended and just vague, slowly leaning towards a non-conclusion but in the show, it’s perfectly played as them finally finding stability, together or apart. It’s an authentic and relatable depiction of the power of first love, and I hope the show team are sensible and just end it there, we don’t need any off-book reimagining of what happens next - leave a good thing be!
