Normal People Audiobook By Sally Rooney cover art

Normal People

A Novel

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Normal People

By: Sally Rooney
Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
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Now an Emmy-nominated a Hulu original series • New York Times best seller

"A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships" (People) from the author of Conversations with Friends, "a master of the literary page-turner" (J. Courtney Sullivan).

One of the 10 best novels of the decade - Entertainment Weekly

Ten best books of the year - People, Slate, the New York Public Library, Harvard Crimson

Best books of the year - The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country

Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life changing begins.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t.

Praise for Normal People

"[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting." (The Washington Post)

"Arguably the buzziest novel of the season, Sally Rooney’s elegant sophomore effort...is a worthy successor to Conversations with Friends. Here, again, she unflinchingly explores class dynamics and young love with wit and nuance." (The Wall Street Journal)

"[Rooney] has been hailed as the first great millennial novelist for her stories of love and late capitalism.... [She writes] some of the best dialogue I’ve read." (The New Yorker)

©2019 Sally Rooney (P)2019 Random House Audio Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt Feel-Good

Critic reviews

"[Narrator] Aoife McMahon, a skillful actor with a gorgeous Irish accent, makes each personality idiosyncratic and believable, and perfectly captures their confusion at being young and emotionally innocent, and trying to be decent but with no idea how to manage it. Rooney's subtle writing and engrossing plot work with McMahon's nimble and witty performance to balance your sympathies on a knife edge between these unforgettable characters." (AudioFile Magazine)

“I’m transfixed by the way Rooney works, and I’m hardly the only one...like any confident couturier, she’s slicing the free flow of words into the perfect shape.... She writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has.” (The Paris Review)

"This superb book more than lives up to the high expectations set for it by Rooney's lauded first novel.... Showcasing Rooney's focus and ability in building character relationships that are as subtle and infinite as real-life ones, and her perceptive portrayal of class, Normal People gets at the hard work of becoming a person and the near impossibility of knowing if a first love is a true one." (Booklist)

"I went into a tunnel with this book and didn’t want to come out. Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heart-breaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves. Young love is a subject of much scorn, but Rooney understands the cataclysmic effects our youth has on the people we become. She has restored not only love’s dignity, but also its significance." (Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter)

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Complex Characters • Beautiful Writing • Emotional Depth • Authentic Dialogue • Compelling Relationships
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I was on the fence about this book. I am so glad I gave it a chance. I can't stop thinking about it.I read the reviews, which kept mentioning that the plot was depressing and triggering. However, I realized its only 7 hours long, which, with the work I do, is only a few days of listening, so I decided to give it a go anyway, thinking there could be something to it because of all the good reviews and its place on "best of" lists.

I understand why it's a decisive book. I don't think its fair to say this book is awful just because it doesn't make you feel happy or good. There are parts of this book where I was deeply uncomfortable but it felt important to get through it. There were parts where I was on the edge of my seat and other parts where it was almost like being in an emotional fog. As readers, I do not think we can judge a book as good or bad based on if we like it, if it's satisfying, or if it explains everything. If you want that, go watch a feel good movie. This is a book, it's a hard book, its upsetting at times, and transcendent at times. And then in the end, you are kind of left there to figure out what it all means. I think the end of this book tells us more about who we are as readers than anything about the plot. The plot almost doesn't matter. This book is more of a feeling.

Other thoughts:
-Great narration. Could be a bit slow so at times I sped it up to 1.25x, which was better for me.
-If you're interested in non traditional gender dynamics or social and economic politics, you'll be into this
-Incredible dialogue and writing
-can be triggering at times. The scene with the photographer made me feel physically sick but I think it was a turning point for one of the characters
-I can't believe how connell, who hardly speaks, is such an incredibly complex character and one of the more emotionally deep characters i've read. I can't believe he's not an actual person. Props to sally rooney.

I can't stop thinking about this book. It really stays with you, like you've witnessed something incredibly intimate. Read it, and if you hate it, return it. I really recommend it if you want some good literature at the cost of an emotional, draining, and difficult rollercoaster.

(this is the longest review i've ever written on audible! i blame the book! )

Difficult, but Worth It

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Sally Rooney creates an intimate universe around the two main characters which makes for a memorable journey.

Compelling characters and story.

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3.5/5: I have thought a lot about this book, which I will interpret as a plus. Mainly I think I still don't quite understand what the point of the story was (I am not intending to be harsh or overly critical). From my understanding, it's the story of Connell and Marianne who both are trying to figure out what it means to be a normal person. In that process, Marianne veers far into self-destructive behaviors such as wanting her sexual partners to hit her, which I hope I am not in the minority in saying that we can all agree is not "normal" (or healthy!) behavior. The story meanders through high school and college (and beyond? That wasn't clear). There does seem to be some resolution to Marianne's brokenness, although I found the revelation behind that to be not fully developed or satisfactory. Overall, I didn't dislike this book; I just found it odd and disturbing. I would love someone to explain to me why it's being praised so highly. I couldn't connect fully with either of the main characters and found myself really frustrated by most of their behavior. Maybe that was the point and it turns out I just don't connect with stories like that?

Odd and slightly disturbing

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The novel took my breath away. What a superbly structured novel. It is written in a masterful Hegelian fashion- thesis/antithesis/synthesis, which become a new thesis. It has also Marxist underpinnings- people of two different classes dialectically moving towards each in a new synthesis (love) - antithesis (essential incompatibility) - a new synthesis (a different form of love), etc. It almost takes us into infinity. For some reason I was always thinking about Kant- only God can reward us with happiness for acting on the basis of moral categorical imperative. Only God or Absolute, in Hegelian terms, can complete this synthesis. An extremely brave, "become" in ontological conflation of being as becoming (bringing back almost archaic modality of thinking about the world), move, which you can also find in her other masterpiece- Conversations with Friends, that affirms and negates post-modern discourse on gender, sex, race, religion, etc. Notice also possible Freudian context wrapped in a Marxist/Hegelian framework: one who dominates wants to be dominated. Aha, another intriguing thesis-antithesis-synthesis. This dialectic is brilliantly constructed in every micro-episode. She herself admitted that she does not know how to write a Marxian novel. Oh, she knows that extremely well. She is too intelligent not to understand what she is doing. She wrote a very sophisticated novel that won't go anywhere. Hermeneutically deciphering and minutely dissecting her both books - two masterpieces- is an extremely fulfilling epistemological process. Does she also posit noumenon as coinciding with the unfolding phenomenon? Something to think about.....In a nutshell, I never read a novel like this. Maybe Faulkner comes close to this.

very Intelligent novel

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I've listened to it three times already. and probably will again. her other books are great too (same reader), but this one is the best

amazing book and reader

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A decent story about two realistically flawed characters and how their lives intertwine. narrator was good, did both male and female voices believably. Not enough closure for me, but other than that good.

Decent story

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Loved this book! Couldn’t stop listening! What an amazing journey these two main characters take. Would definitely recommend.

Great read

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This engaged me through the first part of the book but after awhile It started to feel like a superficial look at two neurotic young people who really weren’t growing very much.

Somewhat engaging but superficial

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The story seemed so real (and almost relatable) where it didn’t just have to do with Connell and Marianne’s relationship together in terms of love but also how they change as people with all their own issues. But it didn’t preach anything, just told their story and we hear them grow somewhat together and apart and we have to take everything the way it was.

I wasn’t a big fan of the Aoife McMahon doing different voices of the characters but it wasn’t horrible.

Bittersweet

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Normal book for normal people. I cared for the way the author used words to describe normal occurrences.Narrator did try. Would recommend for a nice drive.

Normal People

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