Normal People
“Normal People” is a coming-of-age novel published in 2018 by Sally Rooney. The story portrays the ever-growing and changing relationship between Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron, originally two teenagers from a small Irish town. They navigate the various challenges, starting in secondary school and progressing into University life. Throughout her book, Rooney excellently explores several themes, starting with love, power, social class, and mental health, which readers experience alongside the protagonist throughout the story’s progression.
The relationship between the main characters oscillates between friendship and romantic involvement, with each dealing with personal struggles, including issues of self-worth, depression, and complicated family dynamics. The university is showcased and used as a vessel carrying enormous changes, which we, as an audience can relate to. The initial power dynamic of the protagonists shifts. Marianne, once an outsider, becomes more socially confident, while Connell, previously comfortable in his hometown, feels alienated in the elite University environment. The story captures the emotional complexities of young adulthood, as both characters grow and evolve through their university experiences and beyond.
Ultimately, Normal People highlights how factors like privilege, personal history, and social environments shape individual development, making it a compelling exploration of relationships and self-discovery during the transition to adulthood.
By Maria Jaroszek
Stoner
If you ever find yourself in a dull lecture, bear in mind that your lecturer could be a Stoner. Not a hippy joint puffing stoner, but the Stoner from John Williams’ masterpiece in literature. Stoner is simply about the mundane. The book is pretty ‘run-of-the-mill’, but that shouldn’t put you off reading it, because it is also somehow so heart-wrenching, hopeful and resonant.
Stoner is a novel about the life of work whether in academia or elsewhere and the slow realisation of hopes dashed – whether dreamed of or not through the dull passage of life. It’s a book about failure and routine, and you’d expect that to make the story boring, but it becomes gripping. As readers, we feel as though we’re watching life unfold through a lens, much like in The Truman Show, observing the ordinary details of a man’s existence. At the age of nineteen, the character Stoner finds himself drawn to his University, and ends up being stuck there (by choice), becoming a lecturer; something all of us can either dream or have nightmares of. It’s a love story in two ways, one of which is about someone in pursuit of romantic love, and the other is about being in love with academia. But it’s ultimately the story of a man without a story, and one, who knows, that might make you perceive your lecturer differently; or anyone you happen to walk past on campus.
By James Scott