It is only when they are together that they can face themselves and the world around them. No longer forced to keep their relationship a secret, they have other barriers to face–many which are dark and daunting. When they start University, their roles reverse. While they both feel alone and misunderstood, together they understand not only one another, but also themselves. It was culture as class performance, literature fetishised for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys, so that they might afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they liked to read about. Marianne is the school pariah–the girl who people create myths about. Connell is the popular jock who secretly cares what everyone thinks about him. One comes from a loving home, where as the other lives in a cold and hateful environment.Ĭonnell and Marianne start a secret romantic relationship while in high school. It is an intimate, but sometimes painful look at two people from different backgrounds that don’t really belong together. They are two young people drawn to each other who drift apart at times, but always end up coming back to each other throughout their lives.

Normal People by Sally Rooney is about Marianne and Connell, their secret friendship, and their on and off again relationship. 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.īook Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney Then, 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.

Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal.Ī year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. Theme: Social Status, Love and Personal Growth, Normality, Complicated relationshipīook Summary: Normal People by Sally RooneyĪt school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other.

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