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Normal People: One million copies sold

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I feel like Natalie would make a stellar therapist but it sounds like she was one a bit in her previous work life. This is a novel that one enjoys like comfort food, with delight, all in a rush, and only once it has been consumed does one realise how formidable and nourishing it is, how heavy it sits inside you, a treat you'll be digesting long after you leave the table. Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. And now I'm thinking of our episode in, I think, late 2022 with Laura Vanderkam, where she talks about this like it does take effort, but it compels me to focus on the words on the page or on fictional characters troubles that feel real, you know? Now that I live in Portland, Oregon, coming from California, this is the first time in my life that I have really been mindful of the seasons and sort of learned to live in tune with the seasons.

Meanwhile the fictional renditions of internet discourse populated by Rooney’s characters, and others like them, feels particularly pessimistic and whitewashed, detached from the digital ecosystem innovated by Black people, queer people, and people of color. So I just hope that folks are really tuning into themselves and turning to their libraries at home and just letting themselves read when they just need that time and that respite. Her mother abandoned her and her brother when they were quite young because she wanted to go devote herself full-time to the revolution. Marianne is the middle-class teenager who is the loner/outsider in the school, whereas Connell is the working-class teenager who is very popular with the boys and girls. They visit Marianne's summer family home in the Italian countryside, where Jamie and Peggy have also been spending time.

As a reader of color, her characters’ moments of self-absorption and privilege are jarring reminders to me that we are not the same. Like he especially has strong people-pleasing qualities, and Olga has like this deep abandonment issue from her mother like literally walking out on the family when they were very young.

I'm a sucker for a story about star-crossed lovers and characters who are drawn to each other despite all the odds. So just this year, after a lot of work that I did on nervous system regulation and all the things and really shifting my life, quitting my job, I had been able to pick up reading again. Characters of color don’t spend the same time nursing existential malaise, because they’re more likely to be on the front lines, with less time to wax poetic. However, my team and I will delete comments that are hurtful or intended to shame members of this community, particularly if they are left by first-time commenters.We know many readers might see themselves in Natalie's story, and today we are talking about those techniques that Natalie used to recover from her serious burnout, from the daily wind-down ritual Natalie loves to the specific style of stories she most enjoys. Rooney’s characters pursue affairs and break hearts, while attending elite schools, working prestigious internships, publishing bestselling novels, scoring magazine features. We know many readers might see themselves in Natalie’s story, and today we’re diving into Natalie’s experience, sharing her tips, and of course, adding to her reading list. I really love a good metaphor in a world that feels similar to our own, with some fantastical elements. Having now worked my way through the series I have to say that I have rarely seen a more perfect adaptation.

I thought that you were interested in true fantasy or sci-fi books that are to your liking, but we're looking for more like starter titles. One of the clues that something needed to change was Natalie’s realization that, despite being an avid reader, she’d barely read any books in a few years. VogueConnell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. But having thought about it since, and having seen the adaptation, I think it's probably the only ending that would have worked. So now both these kids, Olga and Prieto, are now adults, and we get to see how they have made decisions and shaped their lives in response to that early abandonment.

While I do read novels to expand my worldview—fiction is a brilliant tool for building empathy and understanding with people with different backgrounds—more often I’m looking for relatability and representation in my reading lists. And with the girth of the book and this very heady premise, I was thinking, okay, this might be actually like a very big challenge to get through this book. Sally Rooney co-wrote the television adaptation of Normal People which was broadcast on the BBC in 2020, and for which she was nominated for an Emmy award. When Marianne starts to date Jamie in their second year at university, Connell feels out of place in her world because of his lack of wealth.

Guardian Books of the Year Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. So we have an artist who dies in a terrible accident, but then continues to be a character, continues to narrate from beyond the grave, continues to involve herself in the action. But also about maybe some preconceived notions we have about how our world works and how relationships work and all those expectations. The Irish Independent noted that the series glosses over references to The Communist Manifesto and Doris Lessing's feminist novel The Golden Notebook, which Rooney, who has described herself as a Marxist, included in the book. Because these books grant their owners the ability to do things like experience joy, or inflict pain, or move at great speed, or disappear into shadows that the book itself creates.I think for a lot of people who are approaching burnout or experiencing burnout, relaxing is not so easy when you're really flooded with stress hormones and when you've just got a million tabs open in your brain. It was sad for me because, again, reading had always been a really big part of my identity, and it had always been a very kind of safe space for me as a kid. To me, relatability is a necessary and valid metric to help decide which books to read, love, gift to all my friends.

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