trigger warning: topics of domestic abuse, depression, anxiety, disordered eating, and suicidal ideation are discussed in the book (although not nearly enough to justify their inclusion).

i only borrowed this book because i heard the series on hulu is really good. now, i'm not so sure if i'll watch it. as an explanation, here's a note i wrote on page 234, prompted by nothing in particular: "i'm going to start screaming in exactly 2 seconds." that's about how me and this book got on.

if you don't want to read all 275 pages, here's Normal People summed up in two block quotes. exhibit a:

I didn’t walk off. I asked you if you wanted to go out to the smoking area and you said no.

She sits up on her elbows and looks at him. He’s flushed now, his ears are red.

You didn’t ask, she says. You said, I’m going out to the smoking area, and then you walked away.

No, I said do you want to come out to the smoking area, and you shook your head.

Maybe I didn’t hear you right.

You must not have, he says. I definitely remember saying it to you. But the music was very loud, to be fair.

exhibit b:

Connell said: You know I love you. He didn’t say anything else. She said she loved him too and he nodded and continued driving as if nothing at all had happened, which in a way it hadn’t.

that's it. add in some half-baked subplots about BDSM and childhood abuse, a few disposable secondary characters, and that's the entire book. i just saved you three hours of your life -- you're welcome.

on a more serious note, this book is deeply problematic in ways i can't ignore. first, BDSM and childhood abuse are not related. this narrative needs to stop, because it's seriously pissing me off at this point. not everyone who practices BDSM is re-enacting their trauma -- in fact, the majority of BDSM practitioners did not experience childhood sexual abuse. while the percentage is higher in BDSM practitioners than in the control group, that's not nearly enough data to indicate a causal relationship like what has been normalized by so, so many romance novels. also, other evidence points to how BDSM practitioners are more well-adjusted and emotionally healthier than their vanilla counterparts, so i truly don't see what the problem is.

Spoiler

also, connell tries to fuck marianne after she reveals that she's been abused for the first time in her life? does no one else see that this is extremely exploitative and pretty fucking shitty? like, really?

second, for all it's attempted critique of the class divide, Normal People still managed to feel very privileged. marianne's a fucking communist because she believes money is a social construct that has no meaning which, while that may be true, is incredibly dismissive of the power money has over those that have none. and even though rooney keeps telling is connell is working-class, there's no further exploration into what it feels like to have everyone strut around with their trips to europe and be forced to work his ass off.

Spoiler

in fact, he almost immediately gets a scholarship that allows him to do just that! what the fuck? when has life ever been that easy?

on a more personal level, i'm fucking tired of reading books where the abused protagonist is incredibly and irrevocably damaged. like, it's possible to move past that shit. in fact, most people do -- that's how we keep living.

Spoiler

and not all of us become fucking co-dependent on a boring white boy like marianne does. some of the shit she says in the last chapter? actually creepy.

also: not using quotation marks does not make you [a:Cormac McCarthy|4178|Cormac McCarthy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1590553674p2/4178.jpg]. i cannot be required to work this hard to decipher a romance novel.

tl;dr: use quotation marks, for the love of all that is holy. stop including trauma as a convenient plot point. and please, please just have connell and marianne actually talk to each other! i'm begging you! please!