I can already hear all the critics praising this profound novel and then I think … did they even read it? I will admit I did not read Normal People but I did watch the Hulu adaptation of it and found it was enjoyable. I now see how Rooney was able to make a series out of her books. The book reads like a movie (?) – does that make sense? They are absolutely exhausting. 
     The writing wasn’t bad, not really. I didn’t realize how much I crave whitespace though. The pages (yes some paragraphs went OVER a page) of solid block text was excruciating. When I read my brain couldn’t stop panicking. I felt like I had to read it all in one breath, yet I was suffocating when the end was no where in sight. It was absolutely miserable. 

The dialogue was good! Very realistic back and forth and the conversation flowed wonderfully – YET – I found myself exhausted by the way Rooney presented it all. 
   The only star this book actually earns from me is ‘what’ her character’s were grappling about. I found that conversation entertaining and wish I were sitting in a dark bar, lit by candlelight to discuss further. I disagreed with a lot of it .. but still, very, very interesting topics that I would have loved to sit down with the characters to discuss deeper. 
     Again, here comes another ‘yet’. Yet, would I want to sit down with the characters? I hated them! (HA!) I didn’t care about the characters and I down right didn’t like them. Now I’ve read a few books where I hated the characters but still was able to enjoy reading the book, while wishing the worst for the characters. I am capable of this. Honestly, I didn’t hate them. Hate would mean I had any emotional at all for them … I just didn’t care. I was numb to their emotions and what they were dealing with. I found it all very trivial and boring. 

The sex scenes were cringe-worthy. The conversations were exhausting. The emails I began scanning as I couldn’t stand reading all the gibberish. 
     So no, I would not recommend this book. Maybe it’s a ‘me’ thing .. but I do stand by the average reader who wants to dive into another world and escape a bit would not like this book. Maybe it isn’t written for the average reader? Maybe I’m too average to really get it. And ya know what? That’s okay. The critics can have this one. 

 P.S. Wow – this book did draw out an emotion in me after all. (ha).