V Read—Normal People by Sally Rooney

This week we are taking you back to our book of last year. Just in case you haven’t read it yet… Everyone talked about Sally Rooney’s debut Conversations with Friends. But Normal People was hailed at publication as possibly even better.

This is at heart a “will they wont they” love story full of misunderstandings, unspoken feelings and hold your breath and please work it out moments between two characters that you are willing to make it happen. Marianne and Connell's story takes them through a complex friendship and relationship at school in Ireland through to Trinity College in Dublin. They are both conveyed so convincingly we feel we are living with them through the pages. And the cast of characters and sub plots around them only serve to enhance and make their tale even more brilliant.

The dialogue is literally perfect. The agony is real. But essentially this is a story about love and the utter frustration at how men and women with the best will in the world sometimes simply can’t understand each other.