First Read: Normal People is a book you can’t read with anybody else in the room. Not necessarily because of the scandalous contents of this book but because reading this book is such an intimate and vulnerable experience. It feels like a violation of the character’s privacy to read it in the presence of others simply because it’s such a raw, naked expression of the characters and their thoughts. Sharing it with somebody else feels like you’ve broken a promise and now the privilege of being given a window into their utmost private thoughts will be taken away. Like breaking a friend’s trust. That’s why I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night, sat on a bench outside freezing my hands off and read this book in two sittings.

I really liked that the book wasn’t overly descriptive of the characters’ feelings. It felt more real as in most cases we don’t really know what it is that we are feeling let alone be able to articulate it in an eloquent manner. 

I liked Rooney’s very emotionless way of decribing the characters emotions. It was never excessive, never frivolous. I’ve heard people, whose opinion i value, describe this book as stale and overly chaste. However I disagree. Yes, she writes in a very uncluttered, undecorated way yet for me it never once felt dull. I still felt intense, strong emotions and i could sense the emotional impact the occurring events had on the characters. She also trusts the reader the fill in the blanks so as to not be overly descriptive and I appreciate that.

The absence of quotation marks in dialogues also came as a surprise but a pleasant one at that.

In my liking of this book I came to realise that I don’t really care much for explosive plots and elaborate world building. Though such books have their moments in many cases i often find myself exhausted by it. Rather, I prefer books with realistic, well fleshed out characters engaging with each other in emotionally gripping ways.

This book has rekindled my love for reading and i am grateful to have read it. I am waiting for this book to become fuzzy so that I can reread and enjoy this book again. I can’t recommend it enough.