Bottom line: I've been trying to only read books I actually think I might like this year. This is a loss on that front. I went into a tunnel with this book and didn’t want to come out. Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heart-breaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves. Young love is a subject of much scorn, but Rooney understands the cataclysmic effects our youth has on the people we become. She has restored not only love’s dignity, but also its significance.” —Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter

But you know that’s important because it’s turned up in theexam twice out of the last three years. Marianne . . . Funny and intellectually agile . . . [combines] deft social observation—especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups—with acute feeling . . . [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two.” — Harper’s Magazine I find both of the actors to be well-cast and hot, and that's the nicest thing I have to say about it. Liberties the show takes from the book make the story feel totally different to me. Delve deeper into the Emmy- and Golden Globe–nominated Hulu series based on Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel with this must-have collection of the Normal People scripts, featuring behind-the-scenes photos and an introduction by director Lenny Abrahamson.Rooney is a tough girl; herpapercut-sharp sensibilityis much more akin to writers likeRachel Kushner, Mary Gaitskill, and the pre– Manhattan Beach Jennifer Egan . . . . Normal People is a nuanced and flinty love story about two young people who ‘get’ each other, despite class differences and the interference of their own vigorous personal demons.But honestly, Sally Rooney could write a novel about bath mats and I’d still read it.She’s that good and that singular a writer.” —Maureen Corrigan,NPR’s Fresh Air Rear view of Marianne walking through school. She is determined. Uniformed teens are milling about the corridors as she passes by without a glance at them. Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular. Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation, something life-changing begins. I did like this slightly more than the show it's the script for, in that I was physically capable of finishing this, which I cannot say of the show. When I read Normal People for the first time 2 years ago, something inside me shifted. Maybe it was my standards raising, or maybe it was just my heart tearing itself in two. Either way, this book made a lasting impression on me, and is one of my all time favourites.

Rooney’s] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners . . . are tender portraits of Irish college students. . . . Remarkably precise—she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks .”— New York Review of BooksRooney] has invented a sensibility entirely of her own: sunny and sharp, free of artifice but overflowing with wisdom and intensity. . . . The novel touches on class, politics, and power dynamics and brims with the sparky, witty conversation that Rooney’s fans will recognize.” — Vogue Rooney] has written twofresh and accessiblenovels. . . . There is so much to say about Rooney’s fiction—in my experience, when people who’ve read her meet they tend to peel off into corners to talk.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times If you love Sally Rooney so much that it's like a spell has been cast on you to read every single story, excerpt, postcard, or shopping list she has ever made publicly accessible, this is a book that will feel like obligatory reading to you.