Normal People

If you've ever wondered how it would be like to be a couples therapist maybe this book is what you're looking for.

Points for writing, I think Sally Rooney's popularity speaks for that. Her writing is sensible and “normal”. Her characters don't go into effusive prose when their emotions are heightened. They don't talk like the imaginary people in writers' heads, they talk like normal people, haha. 

First 60 pages, and I just want to punch Connell in the balls, okay? Marianne needs a confrontational friend, but she needs a friend first of all. 

Their back and forth and miscommunication is exhausting. It's either one of them thinks they're talking in complete sentences or the other is just not hearing half of the sentences.

I understand why some people would feel frustrated at the ending bc it seems to have very little payoff. But that's fine to me. Because that's how people's lives normally are, no neat bookends to every volume of their lives. And if anything, that ending is true to form about lives not following a neat story arc and instead we have moments which can be kinda messy.

Do I  think they end up together? Idk, I think they will always have eachother in their lives  because they're like the scabs of a scar. It's just there. But by that end, they're at different points of understanding themselves. Connell is a bit further on and if anything at least he seems to be sure of some things. We have to keep in mind, we only know of Marianne's thoughts and she tends to be more pessimistic but like Connell, she's only sure of a few things. Few, but important.