Normal People by Sally Rooney is a heart-wrenching, sorrowful, and incredibly depressing novel. It made me feel desolate and despairing. It speaks of the pain of abuse: physical and psychological. It addresses issues of depression, anxiety, self-esteem, self-abuse and more surrounding mental health issues. It is incredibly profound for how open, how honest and how accurate this exploration of mental health is. This book also speaks about wealth, poverty, class divides, social cliques, being an outcast and the struggles of trying to fit in as a teenager and student. Ultimately, however, I found this book so difficult to read. It was both compulsive and unsettling at every turn as I had to finish to see if I could find a closure.

I warn you, I felt no closure

.

The relationship between Marianne and Connell was deeply unsatisfying at every turn. They made me want to scream in despair as they failed to communicate, failed to be honest and failed to understand each other. And yet, there still managed to be pillars of support, they managed to do good things for each other in strange ways. They also made me deeply sad; especially Marianne as I saw the abuse and the self-abuse she inflicted upon herself. It pained me to read about her experiences and her behaviour. I wanted to reach out and stop her. I think in other ways I found reading about them so difficult because so many aspects of this novel resonated with me, about fears, anxiety, depression, social pressures and my experiences growing up as a teenager and through college. I couldn't enjoy this novel because I felt to my core, that I have experienced aspects of this novel in one way or another.

The concept of Normal People and being "normal" is one that doesn't really vibe with me either. Society has created a construct of "normality", yet we all have different social cliques, different social circles and that does not necessarily equate to us being normal. I think this book identified the perils of trying to fit with those cliques and how you can lose yourself as you put pressure on yourself to conform to social expectations. It also captured the difficulty, the stress and the social anxiety of trying to make friends, of meeting people and how that can make you feel. Although this is not something that can be told, this is sadly learnt through the fraught teenage years and time spent trying to become comfortable with yourself.

I also think this book handled the topic of male mental health really well, as we saw Connell's friend helping him seek advice, and an active engagement with therapy and support. As suicide is one of the biggest killers for men under 40, I think this is something that Rooney did not shy away from and I think something she handled with care and sensitivity. It felt important that this message was present in this book given the focus on mental health and relationships.

Overall, Normal People is a book I'm glad I can say I have read now, but it is not a book I would like to pick up again. It has made me feel a little hollow inside, a little uncomfortable with society and people, and a little despairing. I considered whether this was the right time for me to read this book, but then I realised there would never be a right time to read this kind of book. I can understand why so many people have been blown away by this book, and I do think it has a lot of value and tackles some really important topics. However, I think I just found it too difficult to read.