{"product_id":"normal-people-isbn-9781984822178","title":"Normal People","description":"\u003cb\u003eNOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e) from the author of \u003ci\u003eConversations with Friends,\u003c\/i\u003e “a master of the literary page-turner” (J. Courtney Sullivan).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eONE OF \u003ci\u003eENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY\u003c\/i\u003e’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003ePeople, Slate,\u003c\/i\u003e The New York Public Library, \u003ci\u003eHarvard Crimson\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConnell 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNormal People\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER: The British Book Award, The Costa Book Award, The An Post Irish Novel of the Year, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times \u003c\/i\u003eYoung Writer of the Year Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time,\u003c\/i\u003e NPR, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town \u0026amp; Country\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“[Rooney] has invented a sensibility entirely of her own: sunny and sharp, free of artifice but overflowing with wisdom and intensity. . . . The novel touches on class, politics, and power dynamics and brims with the sparky, witty conversation that Rooney’s fans will recognize.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eVogue \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A future classic.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003c\/i\u003eRooney is a tough girl; her papercut-sharp sensibility is much more akin to writers like Rachel Kushner, Mary Gaitskill, and the pre–\u003ci\u003eManhattan Beach \u003c\/i\u003eJennifer Egan\u003ci\u003e. . . . Normal People \u003c\/i\u003eis a nuanced and flinty love story about two young people who ‘get’ each other, despite class differences and the interference of their own vigorous personal demons. But honestly, Sally Rooney could write a novel about bath mats and I’d still read it. She’s that good and that singular a writer.”\u003cb\u003e—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s \u003ci\u003eFresh Air\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[Rooney] has written two fresh and accessible novels. . . . There is so much to say about Rooney’s fiction—in my experience, when people who’ve read her meet they tend to peel off into corners to talk.”\u003cb\u003e—Dwight Garner, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Rooney’s] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners . . . are tender portraits of Irish college students. . . . Remarkably precise—she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks\u003cb\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNormal People \u003c\/i\u003etackles millennial concerns with nineteenth-century wit . . . the millennial generation would no doubt be happy to accept her as its spokesperson were she so inclined.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Funny and intellectually agile . . . [combines] deft social observation—especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups—with acute feeling . . . [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHarper’s Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Beautifully observed . . . crackles with vivid insight into what it means to be young and in love today.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“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.”\u003cb\u003e—Stephanie Danler, author of \u003ci\u003eSweetbitter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Masterfully done. The quality of Rooney’s writing, particularly in the psychologically wrought sex scenes, cannot be understated as she brilliantly provides a window into her protagonists’ true selves.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBookPage \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eSally Rooney\u003c\/b\u003e was born in the west of Ireland in 1991. Her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGranta\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe London Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e. Winner of the \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e Young Writer of the Year Award, she is the author of \u003ci\u003eConversations with Friends\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2019, she was named to the inaugural \u003ci\u003eTime \u003c\/i\u003e100 Next list.\u003cp\u003eJanuary 2011\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarianne answers the door when Connell rings the bell. She’s still wearing her school uniform, but she’s taken off the sweater, so it’s just the blouse and skirt, and she has no shoes on, only tights.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOh, hey, he says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCome on in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe turns and walks down the hall. He follows her, closing the door behind him. Down a few steps in the kitchen, his mother Lorraine is peeling off a pair of rubber gloves. Marianne hops onto the countertop and picks up an open jar of chocolate spread, in which she has left a teaspoon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarianne was telling me you got your mock results today, Lorraine says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe got English back, he says. They come back separately. Do you want to head on?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLorraine folds the rubber gloves up neatly and replaces them below the sink. Then she starts unclipping her hair. To Connell this seems like something she could accomplish in the car.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd I hear you did very well, she says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was top of the class, says Marianne.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRight, Connell says. Marianne did pretty good too. Can we go?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLorraine pauses in the untying of her apron.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI didn’t realize we were in a rush, she says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe puts his hands in his pockets and suppresses an irritable sigh, but suppresses it with an audible intake of breath, so that it still sounds like a sigh.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI just have to pop up and take a load out of the dryer, says Lorraine. And then we’ll be off. Okay?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe says nothing, merely hanging his head while Lorraine leaves the room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDo you want some of this? Marianne says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe’s holding out the jar of chocolate spread. He presses his hands down slightly further into his pockets, as if trying to store his entire body in his pockets all at once.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo, thanks, he says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDid you get your French results today?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYesterday.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe puts his back against the fridge and watches her lick the spoon. In school he and Marianne affect not to know each other. People know that Marianne lives in the white mansion with the driveway and that Connell’s mother is a cleaner, but no one knows of the special relationship between these facts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI got an A1, he says. What did you get in German?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn A1, she says. Are you bragging?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’re going to get six hundred, are you?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe shrugs. You probably will, she says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWell, you’re smarter than me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDon’t feel bad. I’m smarter than everyone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarianne is grinning now. She exercises an open contempt for people in school. She has no friends and spends her lunchtimes alone reading novels. A lot of people really hate her. Her father died when she was thirteen and Connell has heard she has a mental illness now or something. It’s true she is the smartest person in school. He dreads being left alone with her like this, but he also finds himself fantasizing about things he could say to impress her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou’re not top of the class in English, he points out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe licks her teeth, unconcerned.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMaybe you should give me grinds, Connell, she says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe feels his ears get hot. She’s probably just being glib and not suggestive, but if she is being suggestive it’s only to degrade him by association, since she is considered an object of disgust. She wears ugly thick-soled flat shoes and doesn’t put makeup on her face. People have said she doesn’t shave her legs or anything. Connell once heard that she spilled chocolate ice cream on herself in the school lunchroom, and she went to the girls’ bathrooms and took her blouse off to wash it in the sink. That’s a popular story about her, everyone has heard it. If she wanted, she could make a big show of saying hello to Connell in school. See you this afternoon, she could say, in front of everyone. Undoubtedly it would put him in an awkward position, which is the kind of thing she usually seems to enjoy. But she has never done it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat were you talking to Miss Neary about today? says Marianne. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOh. Nothing. I don’t know. Exams.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarianne twists the spoon around inside the jar.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDoes she fancy you or something? Marianne says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConnell watches her moving the spoon. His ears still feel very hot.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy do you say that? he says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGod, you’re not having an affair with her, are you?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eObviously not. Do you think it’s funny joking about that? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSorry, says Marianne. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe has a focused expression, like she’s looking through his eyes into the back of his head.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou’re right, it’s not funny, she says. I’m sorry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe nods, looks around the room for a bit, digs the toe of his shoe into a groove between the tiles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSometimes I feel like she does act kind of weird around me, he says. But I wouldn’t say that to people or anything.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven in class I think she’s very flirtatious toward you.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDo you really think that?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarianne nods. He rubs at his neck. Miss Neary teaches Economics. His supposed feelings for her are widely discussed in school. Some people are even saying that he tried to add her on Facebook, which he didn’t and would never do. Actually he doesn’t do or say anything to her, he just sits there quietly while she does and says things to him. She keeps him back after class sometimes to talk about his life direction, and once she actually touched the knot of his school tie. He can’t tell people about the way she acts because they’ll think he’s trying to brag about it. In class he feels too embarrassed and annoyed to concentrate on the lesson, he just sits there staring at the textbook until the bar graphs start to blur.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeople are always going on at me that I fancy her or whatever, he says. But I actually don’t, at all. I mean, you don’t think I’m playing into it when she acts like that, do you?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot that I’ve seen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe wipes his palms down on his school shirt unthinkingly. Everyone is so convinced of his attraction to Miss Neary that sometimes he starts to doubt his own instincts about it. What if, at some level above or below his own perception, he does actually desire her? He doesn’t even really know what desire is supposed to feel like. Any time he has had sex in real life, he has found it so stressful as to be largely unpleasant, leading him to suspect that there’s something wrong with him, that he’s unable to be intimate with women, that he’s somehow developmentally impaired. He lies there afterward and thinks: I hated that so much that I feel sick. Is that just the way he is? Is the nausea he feels when Miss Neary leans over his desk actually his way of experiencing a sexual thrill? How would he know?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI could go to Mr. Lyons for you if you want, says Marianne. I won’t say you told me anything, I’ll just say I noticed it myself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJesus, no. Definitely not. Don’t say anything about it to anyone, okay?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOkay, all right.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe looks at her to confirm she’s being serious, and then nods.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt’s not your fault she acts like that with you, says Marianne. You’re not doing anything wrong.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eQuietly he says: Why does everyone else think I fancy her, then?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMaybe because you blush a lot when she talks to you. But you know, you blush at everything, you just have that complexion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe gives a short, unhappy laugh. Thanks, he says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWell, you do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYeah, I’m aware.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou’re blushing now actually, says Marianne.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe closes his eyes, pushes his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He can hear Marianne laughing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy do you have to be so harsh on people? he says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI’m not being harsh. I don’t care if you’re blushing, I won’t tell anyone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJust because you won’t tell people doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOkay, she says. Sorry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe turns and looks out the window at the garden. Really the garden is more like “grounds.” It includes a tennis court and a large stone statue in the shape of a woman. He looks out at the “grounds” and moves his face close to the cool breath of the glass. When people tell that story about Marianne washing her blouse in the sink, they act like it’s just funny, but Connell thinks the real purpose of the story is something else. Marianne has never been with anyone in school, no one has ever seen her undressed, no one even knows if she likes boys or girls, she won’t tell anyone. People resent that about her, and Connell thinks that’s why they tell the story, as a way of gawking at something they’re not allowed to see.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI don’t want to get into a fight with you, she says.\u003c\/p\u003eWinner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303905775845,"sku":"NP9781984822178","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781984822178.jpg?v=1767733871","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/normal-people-isbn-9781984822178","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}