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A review by moonvers3
Normal People by Sally Rooney
3.0
Was it enjoyable to read? Only at times where the angst was pulling at my angst-loving heartstrings.
I honestly think had I not been also listening to the audiobook I would have put this down or read it another time. I don’t know if it’s an Irish thing, or just a stylistic choice, but the lack of quotation marks or any sort of differentiating marker between when a character is speaking or not would have annoyed me within a few pages.
That ending let me completely unsatisfied, and I felt like the purpose of that ending was very…. angsty tumblr in the mids 2010s and maybe that’s why I didn’t enjoy reading it now. There was absolutely no resolution ?? Was there ever any proper character development? Like I would have loved to have seen Marianne work through her shit, instead we got a time jump and an offensive ending. Offensive to my feelings and my expectations of an actual arc happening. We don’t find out why her mother hates her, why her brother abuses her, or why she needs to be hurt to feel something during sex. Her mother is just a rich bitch, her brother is just an abusive asshole (but is somehow scared of Conell) and she just needs to submit. I’m gonna say Marianne’s character borderlines manic pixie…. And Connell sometimes as well. Idk I was very unsatisfied, but hey, it made have strong feelings about it enough to write this lol.
I honestly think had I not been also listening to the audiobook I would have put this down or read it another time. I don’t know if it’s an Irish thing, or just a stylistic choice, but the lack of quotation marks or any sort of differentiating marker between when a character is speaking or not would have annoyed me within a few pages.
That ending let me completely unsatisfied, and I felt like the purpose of that ending was very…. angsty tumblr in the mids 2010s and maybe that’s why I didn’t enjoy reading it now. There was absolutely no resolution ?? Was there ever any proper character development? Like I would have loved to have seen Marianne work through her shit, instead we got a time jump and an offensive ending. Offensive to my feelings and my expectations of an actual arc happening. We don’t find out why her mother hates her, why her brother abuses her, or why she needs to be hurt to feel something during sex. Her mother is just a rich bitch, her brother is just an abusive asshole (but is somehow scared of Conell) and she just needs to submit. I’m gonna say Marianne’s character borderlines manic pixie…. And Connell sometimes as well. Idk I was very unsatisfied, but hey, it made have strong feelings about it enough to write this lol.