NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • COMING TO HULU IN 2020 • SALLY ROONEY NAMED TO THE 2019 TIME 100 NEXT LIST “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (People) from the author of ...

We really did not have much to say about Normal People. When the book came up in our secondary discussion, almost everyone who read it immediately dismissed it as not worth talking much about. The majority of NUBClub found it poorly written and not credible. We basically couldn't believe the protagonist -- it made no sense why Marianne couldn't just stay in the good relationship she had when she knew it made her happy. There was something simply unreal about how she observed her own satisfaction and then for basically no reason did not fight to preserve it. This was true to some extent with Connell who also just decides to move or date other people basically just to make himself suffer, but Marianne takes this dynamic to an almost ridiculously masochistic level. The book is basically a shorter and worse written version of A Little Life. Sara defended the book, arguing that the class struggle depicted in the romance was good and that the chemistry between the characters was actually sympathetic. We all agreed on these points, pointing especially to the scholarship scene as a great example of the way the world differs for people of different backgrounds. But none of this could redeem the relentless need for Rooney to have her characters pointlessly torture themselves.