It’s not uncommon for a book to focus on the main cast and leave the supporting characters unsupported, but it’s a real bummer here because both Connell and Marianne are largely defined by other people. I don’t like doubling back for something that basic punctuation can clarify. There were times when I thought one or the other said something they didn’t and had to reread a scene.

Some authors make a lack of quotation marks feel natural, or their conversations are brief enough that speech is consistently clear, but I struggled throughout Normal People. Connell and Marianne are wishy-washy when communicating their wants/needs, even if their internal monologue is more straightforward. The lack of quotation marks also adds to my impression that the book is missing something. Or maybe I’m jealous I didn’t think of it first. Dumping exposition into a disjointed timeline feels like a shortcut. This style reminds me of something that bugs me about my own writing: it’s “easy” to write the main story beats, but connective tissue is hard. The writing is descriptive enough that I could infer the broad strokes of what happened during the narrative break, but then a number of chapters established the new normal before recapping key moments from previous months. Breaking down the action like this allows for a sort of highlight reel of Connell and Marianne’s relationship. The first chapter is titled “January 2011” and subsequent chapters are titled “Three Weeks Later (February 2011),” “One Month Later (March 2011),” and so on. My initial opinion of the book’s structure was positive. They’re “happy” when together, but drift apart due to poor communication and a host of unresolved (and untreated) issues. When they’re off-again, Marianne pursues deeply unhealthy relationships, and Connell is depressed. They break up, then attend the same college, where they have an on-again, off-again thing. They have a relationship, but Connell refuses to acknowledge that he knows Marianne at school. Connell (poor and popular) and Marianne (rich and unpopular) go to the same high school. A non-ending on a book like this leaves it feeling incomplete. I don’t mind open endings, in theory, but Normal People lacks an overall arc and its characters remain unchanged. There’s room in literature for unhappy characters, and I love thorough character studies, even of miserable people, but there’s too much about this book that doesn’t work for me-bad communication between the lead couple, gimmicky structure, a lack of quotation marks, and a non-ending. I don’t understand reviews that paint it as romantic or funny, because I’d argue it’s a starting point to talk about codependency. There’s a lot about Normal People that’s normal for high school and college relationships, but I have less patience for this type of story now than I would if I’d read this book from a dorm room.

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