From the Bookshelf of forever and evermore swifties…

Normal People

Sally Rooney

Start date: September 1, 2022

Finish date: October 1, 2022

Why we're reading this: botm for September, which we will be comparing to illicit affairs, tis the damn season, all too well, exi…more
[close] botm for September, which we will be comparing to illicit affairs, tis the damn season, all too well, exile, and sad beautiful tragic

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Jun 02, 2023 Meg Gramer rated it liked it

fav quotes:

“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.”

“Her eyes fill up with tears again and she closes them. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she's aware of this now, while it's happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now s ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 15, 2023 Sirine rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-english, audiobooks, disastrously-horrible, année-2023

i’m sorry but i feel like i just wasted my time with this book lol good thing it was short.
like everyone saying it's heartbreaking, exceptional, profound, meaningful, well written and all that is just so confusing to me because... it was just mediocre at best i am SORRY

i just didn’t see the point, it just felt like the kind of books that wanna sound deep by using big words and having misunderstood privileged white characters and doing this like class commentary but at the end of the day it’s jus i’m sorry but i feel like i just wasted my time with this book lol good thing it was short.
like everyone saying it's heartbreaking, exceptional, profound, meaningful, well written and all that is just so confusing to me because... it was just mediocre at best i am SORRY

i just didn’t see the point, it just felt like the kind of books that wanna sound deep by using big words and having misunderstood privileged white characters and doing this like class commentary but at the end of the day it’s just giving nothing.

i didn’t feel any connection with the characters and their relationship which could have been so special but just felt flat, boring and so empty. like there was just nothing there, so repetitive and pointless. two people who sleep together, then are on and off for years, dating other people who don’t understand them, then they go back to each other because apparently they have this special connection even if they come from different backgrounds. i guess the point was to show that people come and leave your life over the years but like thanks we all knew that already lol.

it was just so weird because i didn’t even understand or see that special connection they supposedly had. like you two just keep going back to each other over the years but why? you don’t have meaningful conversations, y’all don’t even talk that much appart from having some I love yous thrown around from time to time. at some point it just felt like they stayed together out of habit.
i feel like the author really wanted to go with the "they don't need to talk to understand each other and have a connection" vibe but like HELLO the readers are here! we need to understand the relationship!! it can't just simply be there without any explanation!!!

then the end… please
it just felt like yet another episode of them miscommunicating and going to be apart and probably coming back after a while like why would you even end it like this??? no character growth or development just NOTHING. we don't even know if they will ever really end up together or just keep this whole on and off thing forever.

now about the side characters... they were all so weird, shallow and not developed whatsoever. the worst probably were Marianne's mom and brother. the author really said "her mom hates her, her brother is abusive, I'm no going to explain or illustrate why, they just are" like??

the writing felt so heavy and mechanical. the way the author kept going back and forth between present and past even though the events had nothing to do together was just so confusing. the flashbacks were also sooo long sometimes i would even forget we were in one and when we would come back in the present i would just be like… oh yeah right he was remembering something that happened last month again…...

basically it cruelly lacked depth, everything was so shallow.
the author sometimes tries to talk about important topics like depression, war, poverty, capitalism, using your time like you want to use it, sexual kinks (that one got me very confused like what the fuck did you try to do here miss sally rooney??), or how the characters feel like they don't fit in but as i said NOTHING is explored further, just dumped on the reader and then never mentioned again. and it's kinda sad because i technically could relate a lot to Marianne and Connell weren't developed and didn't TALK i just couldn't feel anything.

anyway, with so many people loving this book i guess that there IS a point somewhere but i just didn’t see or feel it. hopefully the show is better.

ps: where the fuck are the damn quotations marks i’m being so serious ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

May 07, 2022 court rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3.5 but i’ll round to 4; this was a reread that I first read in 2019 and i liked going back and reading it with a different view point to what I had then. i love the storyline and the analogies that are throughout the book. i have so many thoughts over this book i could write an essay lol but i’ll stop here.

3 likes · Like · see review

Jul 17, 2023 livie☆ rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: physical-tbr

YASSS I'M FINALLY FREE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 06, 2021 Paz Vivanco (Taylor's Version) rated it liked it · review of another edition

3,5/5

Tenía las expectativas muy altas con este libro y lamentablemente no se cumplieron.

Voy a partir con lo que no me gustó: la historia en sí. La encontré plana, sin mucha emoción. Si bien la dinámica entre los personajes era buena, no lograron conquistarme para nada. Hasta me atrevería a decir que a veces me aburría un poco de ellos, a pesar de que tenían un vínculo muy especial entre ambos.

Ahora diré lo que sí me gustó: la narración. Disfruté mucho la manera en que estaba escrito y cómo la au ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Sep 25, 2022 Arleyne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

The writing style, the depth of the characters, the vibes, and the relatability of certain thoughts (at least for me), made this such an interesting read. The plot was practically nonexistent, and it still managed to keep my attention.

It did turn out to be a lot heavier than I initially thought it'd be, so I might not reread it as often as I normally would (because of triggers).

Exile by Taylor Swift will now always remind me of Marianne and Connel. And maybe also Cardigan.

I did consider dropp ...more

Like · see review

Apr 23, 2023 Claudia rated it it was ok · review of another edition

emmm okay……

“How strange to feel herself so completely under the control of another person, but also how ordinary. No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not”.

“All these years they've been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions”. ...more

Like · see review