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3 out of 5 stars! �� This is the first book by Sally Rooney, who at just 27, with two highly regarded novels under her belt, the latter making the Booker longlist, clearly has an optimistic future ahead. I am less sure of the auspices of her protagonists�� relationship. However, the conclusion Rooney reaches is not about their future, it is how they have arrived at a comfortable and mutual definition of “normal��: accepting themselves as they are, as opposed to how they think others see them... I must say that I kind of liked this book a lot and I was sure that I was going to rate it with 5 stars, but then there were some topics that kind of bugged me and made dislike the story at times.



So here is what the novel is about: Marianne and Connell �� clever, sensitive, awkward teenagers �� go to the same school in Sligo, but Marianne lives in the “white mansion with a driveway��, where Connell’s mother works as a cleaner. Regularly thrown into each other’s company when Connell comes to pick his mother up, the two constantly wrestle with their feelings. Connell doesn’t think Marianne likes him much, but he’s keenly aware of the sense of “total privacy�� between them, and the fact that when (often) they slide into embarrassed laughter “they couldn’t look at each other ... they had to look into corners of the room, or at their feet��. It’s a surprise to them both (though not really to us) when they begin a hesitant, clandestine relationship. The latter because Marianne is considered at school to be a misfit, equally feared and mocked by the crueller members of their friendship group. But far from being indignant that Connell won’t own up to their liaison, our heroine �� for reasons that will dawn slowly and chillingly as the novel unfolds �� seems to accept it as her lot.



When both get places at Trinity College Dublin, it’s the start of a protracted will-they-won’t-they? love affair, with the two relentlessly, often wretchedly, ricocheting between sexual involvement, furious dumping and a touchingly easy friendship. You read on with only one blazing question in mind. How long is it going to take this pair of star-crossed lovers to find out what the rest of us have understood from page one: that they belong together? I must say that the story is cute but it doesn't really go into more interesting, complex layers and that's what makes it quite ordinary. Not a waste of time but I'll probably forget about it tomorrow.

“Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything,�� �� Sally Rooney, ‘Normal People��