Normal People

The novel follows the complex friendship and relationship between two teenagers, Connell and Marianne, who both attend the same secondary school in County Sligo, Ireland and, later, Trinity College Dublin (TCD). It is set during the post-2008 Irish economic downturn. Connell is a popular, handsome, and highly intelligent secondary school student who begins a relationship with the unpopular, intimidating yet equally intelligent Marianne, whose mother employs Connell's mother as a cleaner. Connell keeps the affair a secret from school friends out of shame, but ends up attending Trinity with Marianne after the summer and reconciling. Well-off Marianne blossoms at university, becoming pretty and popular, while Connell struggles for the first time in his life to fit in properly with his peers. The pair weave in and out of each other's lives across their university years, developing an intense bond that brings to light the traumas and insecurities that make them both who they are.

Overall, Normal People received wide acclaim from critics.[4] The novel was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize.[5] It was voted as the 2018 Waterstones' Book of the Year[6] and won "Best Novel" at the 2018 Costa Book Awards.[7] In 2019, the novel was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.[8] In the same year, the novel was ranked 25th on The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.[9] Media in Ireland described the book as a polemic, noting that Rooney has described herself as a Marxist and that the book features discussions about The Communist Manifesto document and Doris Lessing's feminist novel The Golden Notebook.[10]

Caroline E. Tew of The Harvard Crimson listed it as one of the 10 best books of the 2010s and wrote, "The prose is so clean and readable it’s almost as if you’re reading your own thoughts, and this is a book that simultaneously hurts to read and demands to be devoured in one day. It’s a beautiful trainwreck, and you can’t look away."[11] Entertainment Weekly writers ranked the book as the 10th best of the decade, with Seija Rankin writing, "Both of Sally Rooney’s novels capture the millennial ethos with raw honesty and impeccable insight. But what she broke ground with in Conversations With Friends, she perfected in Normal People."[12]

In May 2019, BBC Three and Hulu announced that a TV series based on the novel, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal as Marianne and Connell, respectively, was set to be produced.[13] It premiered on April, 26 2020 on BBC Three and April, 27 2020 on the Australian streaming service Stan.[14] In Ireland, the series began airing on RTÉ One on April 28, 2020.

• Faber & Faber – Sally Rooney's profile