I loved this story so much. While this is a love story, I wouldn’t classify Normal People as a romance novel. It didn’t take very long to feel immersed and engaged in the characters lives, which was at times heart-wrenching. Read this book, you won’t regret it.

There’s been so much hype surrounding Normal People since the second it came out in the UK that I think I might’ve had my hopes set a little too high. I was expecting something that would really “wow” me, something unlike anything that I have never read before, but instead I got a novel that left me with lukewarm feelings.

Marianne and Connell are two students who come from polar opposite ends of the social ladder: Marianne is unpopular and a bit eccentric while Connell is someone who is very concerned with his appearance and the idea of being well liked. When Connell starts picking up his mother from Marianne’s house (his mother is Marianne’s cleaner), the two begin to feel a mutual attraction and decide to embark on a heavy and secretive relationship which interweaves itself throughout many stages of their lives.

On one hand, I’m not surprised I wasn’t completely flabbergasted by this one… I mean, I didn’t particularly love Rooney’s debut, Conversations with Friends… so why should this one be any different? I found that certain sections of the book were a bit predictable (like how Marianne and Connell crossed paths the first time) and at times even a bit boring. BUT I also realized that there was some strange, mystical quality about this book that made me read it in a single sitting.

Anyway, I love the idea of what Rooney was trying to accomplish - she wanted to show how this spontaneous relationship eventually changed each partner for the better and that they could be "normal people" - however I’m just not so sure I loved exactly how it was done.

Normal People is full of life, has crisp dialogue, and literary in nature. Sally Rooney crafts a story that is believable and centers around the characters engagingly. Books like this are why people read books.

I didn't know what to expect going into it. It's about a secret relationship between two people in highschool and follows them years later into college and after college. He's the popular guy who's sleeping with the weird girl and doesn't want anyone to know. They keep drifting apart, but then finding their way back to eachother. Not really a typical romance novel. It wasnt bad though.

This was a bit of an odd book. My copy was also very hard to read because of formatting but I didn't mark down the review because of that. I know that's to be expected with ARC copies.

So this book was definitely not what I was expecting and while I did like the weird relationship between the two main characters I felt like the writing was a bit dry for me. This is mostly my fault as I requested this book because I thought it was primarily a romance novel and while it is somewhat a romance novel, it's not your stand romance story.

The two main characters and definitely unique and quirky. There relationship was fairly real for people of their age and I did really like how this book capture all of the awkwardness of adolescence and growing up. It was definitely a unique perspective and it was kind of nostalgia to the feelings of growing up.

While I was interested I just couldn't get into the story very much nor could I stay intrigued.
I do really love the cover though.

Normal People is a thought provoking coming of age novel. Having not read the author before I wasn't sure if the writing style would work for me but it did. Some of the book lagged a bit, but overall I think the message is of great importance.

i couldn't even make it 4 pages into this book. it doesn't have any quotation marks around dialogue, and my smallish brain cannot handle it.

I am very impressed with Sally Rooney’s writing and character studies in this novel! It brought back all of the awkward feelings from high school and college. The two main characters Marianne and Connell are coming of age, trying to figure things out about themselves, their future, their relationships. I really had to zoom through it to see how it would end.
I’d like to give warning for some sexual violence, eating disorder and depression. If you like in depth character building and some insightful thoughts about people and growing up, I think you would like this book.

WOW. Within twenty pages I was enthralled with Connell and Marianne-- unable to put down the book until I knew what would happen with their magnetic relationship. A truly remarkable book that inspires introspection and left me questioning things about myself.

I received this ARC as a courtesy from NetGalley & the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers—one they are determined to conceal.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

When I received the copy of my book from Net Galley, it clearly was unedited and mentioned that this would not be the final copy of the book. There are a lot of blatant errors that need to be corrected as well as the fact that there are NO quotation marks. This was rather distracting to me because I am a writer and this is just a rule that we need to live by. Use them. I also believe the book needed to have been written in past tense, this was also a major distraction.

There is a lot of insight that Sally Rooney provides for social commentary or the such. It’s definitely a coming of age story. the characters felt distant, needed to have more back story, and needed to have more depth to them. I felt awkward forcing myself to like characters that were odd.

The conversations I had issues with because they felt like they didn’t belong or added afterword. They need to flow more and they need to really add to the plot. There definitely needs to be a change in some of the conversations that are currently happening in the book.

It’s an odd book. I couldn’t get into it. It just didn’t work for someone who reads and knows what they like. Might be great for someone less committed to reading and is less nit-picky, but this book just wasn’t for me. Interesting concept, could have been executed better.

Some amazing gems of sentences. Some of the gorgeous descriptions of mundane, everyday things will stick with me for a long, long time. The characters are a little uneven, but the perfect, particular details make the story seem real all the same, and I was emotionally invested all the way through.

This was the last title to be published on the Booker long list but imediatley became one I very much wanted to read because of all the buzz around it. I believe it lives up to the buzz. It is a love story involving Connell and Marianne, and is striped of all sentimentality involving love stories. Connell is, as we learn later in the book, a depressive with excellent grades, from the lower end of the income bracket. Marianne starts as an unpopular wealthy girl with a streak of masochism and a procleviety towards men who bully her. Their relationship starts in high school secretly, and then continues at Trinity University.
There was so much I enjoyed about this book, the structure (chapters are titled by the passage of time), the story, the character development, and its statements on class, gender, depression etc...
Overall I would definitely recommend it. I do wish it made the short list, but of the 5 short listed books, I am unsure which I would bump for this, as they all have so much to say. I did like it better than at least 2 of the short listed books I read though
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with this arc available through netgalley.

Normal People by Sally Rooney, is a coming of age story of Connell and Marianne, two young adults who end up at Uni together. I felt this could have been a great love story, had it not spelled out the plot. I felt that this book although had the making of a great book, was hard to understand and awkward in certain chapters. The characters felt a bit distant and fake rather. Most of the time it was hard to know where the characters were. The conversations were forced and didn’t flow. Overall, I would recommend this book but with a disclaimer about the plot.

I was given this book by Net Galley.

I really tried to like this book. I read 35% of it and finally gave up. I just couldn't get interested in their relationship and I didn't like the way the story jumped months ahead at a time. It was just a very strange story and wasn't very interesting to me.

Normal People by Sally Rooney had me hooked from the very first chapter. I couldn't help but get sucked into the the lives of Connell and Marianne and couldn't wait to find out what awaited them. Marianne's story is just heartbreaking and I was so rooting for these two paths to finally become one. GREAT BOOK AND A MUST READ

3 stars for a story that kept me reading, but was draggy. Lots of description, but not as much plot as I had hoped.

Normal People is the story of growing up different at times from those around you. One didn't fit in during the high school years while secretly dating one of the popular ones. Roles are reversed for the same two characters when they are in college. After college seemed like a seesaw of their relationship and their relationships with others. Her family seemed totally messed up and I found it annoying/disturbing to read about them.

I kept reading to know how it ended, but afterwards wondered why it had to take so long to get there. Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

"Normal People" has the heat, tenderness, and satisfaction of a great romance novel, and then some. This is a book that believes in soul mates but rejects fantasy, embracing the conventions of the romance genre while transcending them with Sally Rooney's much-praised literary eloquence and keen social perceptions. Come for the Man Booker hype, stay for all the irony, intensity, and all-consuming ambiguity of young millennial love.