{"id":81857,"date":"2018-07-24T17:11:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T06:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=81857"},"modified":"2018-07-24T17:11:43","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T06:11:43","slug":"normal-people-sally-rooney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2018\/07\/24\/normal-people-sally-rooney\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: Normal People by Sally Rooney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sally<\/a>Normal People<\/strong>
\nby Sally Rooney<\/strong><\/p>\n

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a moment in The Catcher in the Rye<\/em><\/a> where Holden Caulfield talks about the strange feeling you get at the end of a truly satisfying read – the yearning you feel to pick up the phone and speak to the author about their ideas and the what their book meant for you, as if through their writing this distant stranger had instantly become like family to you and that you\u2019d deeply miss them now their story was over. If only I had a phone number for Sally Rooney, author of the incredible new novel, Normal People<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

This brief and intelligent story of human connection concerns Connell and Marianne, two\u00a0teenagers finishing off high school in a small Irish town. Both relative outsiders, Marianne comes from material wealth but is socially isolated and Connell is her opposite. When both venture beyond the town to places at Trinity College in Dublin, their unlikely connection evolves into something far beyond expectation and we see how remarkable \u201cnormal people\u201d can be.<\/p>\n

Normal People<\/em><\/a> is also one of the best portraits of the nature of contemporary femininity and masculinity I\u2019ve ever read. The writing is as precise, honest and as satisfyingly witty as Rooney\u2019s debut, Conversations with Friends<\/em><\/a>, a book I\u2019ve previously ranted and raved about. Normal People<\/a><\/em> is less tense and sensational in its plotting but this has opened up Rooney to shape more delicate and deeper characters.<\/p>\n

A profound statement on the inextricable imprint we leave on one another, Normal People<\/em><\/a> has to be one of the best romances in literature written this century to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Normal People by Sally Rooney Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 There\u2019s a moment in The Catcher in the Rye where Holden Caulfield talks about the strange feeling you get at the end of a truly satisfying read – the yearning you feel to pick up the phone and speak to the author about their ideas and the what their book meant for you, as if through their writing this distant stranger had instantly become like family to you and that you\u2019d deeply miss them now their story was over. If only I had a phone number for Sally Rooney, author of the incredible new novel, Normal People. This brief and intelligent story of human connection concerns Connell and Marianne, two\u00a0teenagers finishing off high school in a small Irish town. Both relative outsiders, Marianne comes from material wealth but is socially isolated and Connell is her opposite. When both venture beyond the town to places at Trinity College in Dublin, their unlikely connection evolves into something far beyond expectation and we see how remarkable \u201cnormal people\u201d can be. Normal People is also one of the best portraits of the nature of contemporary femininity and masculinity I\u2019ve ever read. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":81859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6678],"tags":[7623,8594,6921,9047,9046,8595],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Sally-Rooney-Social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81857"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81865,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81857\/revisions\/81865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}