Normal People
ABOUT
THE BOOK
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, 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 side-lines, 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.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Normal People follows the lives of two young people growing emotionally together and apart in modern Ireland, a difficult love story of a couple who damage the other as much as their relationship helps them to grow.
Waterford City and County Libraries
We follow Marianne and Connell from their last year at school until their late student years. She is from a well-off, he from a single parent background. With an on-and-off relationship they struggle to find their place within their peer groups. While expressing themselves normality is always an option though difficult. They find out their knowledge about each other’s problems (cold family/ not belonging to upper class) runs deeper and they need each other to assure themselves they needn’t be different from what they are.
Stadtbücherei Frankfurt am Main, Germany
A book about love between two people, the highs and lows of a weird relationship, the delicate intimacies and dark corners of entanglement. A very clever read with beautiful writing.
Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand