This is a book about young people. It is written in a new style that breaks some rules. Good for that! I say go to it. It totally pulls the rug out from under the "Show don't Tell" monotone that reverberates around reviewing circles.

Told in a new style with no quotation marks, it manages to convey a lot about relationships, communication that doesn't work between kids and growing up.

The writer is a young, brave Irish writer from the West of Ireland. The setting is there and in Dublin. Two young people from different socio-economic backgrounds find each other and they fill a need, each one in the other.

Bullies in their school do everything possible to poison the relationship and they succeed for a time, but what is there that is true finds it way to help both the girl and the boy as they move on to college and some of their roles are reversed, then reversed again as happens as things change in life.

I did not totally relate to everything, but I related to enough.

I thought this was brilliant and it goes to show that writers should not be afraid to do their own things. When a story is well told it works as this one does, remarkably well while breaking a lot of rigid rules of storytelling that have come to call in reviewing circles in general.

I say, go forward and experiment, be bold.

I enjoyed the book and read it in less than a week which is quite remarkable (lately) for me. The ending was perfection - love each other enough to want what's best for them, even if it isn't you.

Very fine storytelling from a young (under 30) Irish female writer. What do you know.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Normal People: A Novel   from Amazon.Com!

Created May 20, 2019 at 9:40am • Submit your own review...