Normal People

Normal People by Sally Rooney At school Connell and
Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and
well-adjusted star of the school soccer team while she is
lonely proud and intensely private. 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. 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 in college Marianne and
Connell circle one another straying toward other people
and possibilities but always magnetically irresistibly
drawn back together. 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. 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.