Didn't think much of Normal People

[Susanna85]

I keep seeing love for Normal People online.
I read it and then watched the BBC series.
Perhaps I was expecting more, given the show's apparent popularity.

I thought it was alright as a book but completely forgettable afterwards. And the TV episodes were not captivating, I began scrolling through my phone etc. Why is everyone loving it so much!? Or is it just clever advertisement

I found the book boring so didn’t bother with the tv series. My mum absolutely loves both and I really can’t understand why.

Dear God it was awful!! I mean actual Jojo Moyes levels of dreadful.

I really enjoyed it , and did a binge watch

I watched the first episode and mentally switched off after 10 minutes....

I found it very boring and didn’t warm to anyone. There didn’t feel like much redemption.

My teenage romances were jolly and exciting and fun. Not all intense and sobbing.

I'm about two thirds through the book but I'm struggling. I want to read it before watching but I may give up. It's dull, pretentious and just so "millennial" in every sense I find myself cringing (and I'm technically a "millennial"). I read a lot of literary fiction and I want to like it but it's just not happening.

Perhaps if I didn't have such high expectations it may be different?

Me neither.

I enjoyed it, but I couldn’t relate to it at all, they were all roughly 18-21, but had many dinner parties at university with frequent lengthy intellectual debates like people in their 30’s and 40’s, lived in large grand houses, summer holidays to Italian villas etc., maybe some people had a university experience like that, but I think it’s completely alien to most people and I kept forgetting that these were supposed to be young university students. I also couldn’t really relate to their relationship much, being gay and not having an “epic teenage romance” myself, I know many viewers could, but their relationship was completely different to any relationship I’ve ever had, so there wasn’t even that element of “reminiscing my teenage years” for me.

These aren’t really faults with the programme, just that I personally couldn’t relate to it in anyway whatsoever. I did find some of sex scenes quite disturbing as well, but I suppose that’s a credit to the acting. I enjoyed it, but probably would have enjoyed it more if it was more relatable.

I loved it but I can see why it's not going to appeal to everyone.

I didn't read the book and watched the first couple of episodes and thought "er, so?" But by the third I was captivated/heartbroken/nostalgic all at once and went back and rewatched from the beginning. It's true very little happens but it's much more subtle than that.

It really spoke to me because I've always been a bit of a misfit/oddball and I did have the experience of having boyfriends who were really affectionate and passionate in private but seemed embarrassed by my uncoolness in public. It caused me a lot of pain, shame and confusion. Plus the Connell actor looked very like the BF I had at Uni - sort of gave me a gentle shock with each close up.

I agree Marianne seemed much too beautiful and sophisticated to be an oddball though!

It felt like it was trying so hard to be relevant and thought provoking and just ended up being trying.

Yes, this is what I'm finding with the book.

Ha ha. The opening post reminds me of pointless one star book reviews. 'It was alright'. Why bother? I doubt the writer's going to lose much sleep over such a damning critique.

My sister started watching it the other day, and said it should be renamed 'boring people' ....

@MayDayHelp there were only 12 episodes in it 😂

I got to the final episode, finished I and looked for the next one not realising that was the last episode!

@Pangur2

Good point.

Very different from my uni experience in the north of England. Which did not include student hosted dinner parties or much talk of politics. Their experience seems very middle aged or from another era, I'm guessing they never went on 'carnage'!

Oh thank god for this thread! I hated the book - Connell was a twat who treated Marianne like dirt and expected her to read his mind whenever he wanted something, and then he just applies for a job in New York and doesn’t tell her. Wtf? How is this an amazing romance?

And yes, I never had a single intellectual conversation at uni. Foam parties, tequila shots and snogging randoms was more my uni experience.

I looked for the next episode at the end too @Nicknacky. I was ‘oh that’s the end? ‘

As a middle-aged, logical person who is fairly good at communicating and who knows lasting relationships are not just based on sex, but good communication and shared values, I found the suggestion that it is 'normal' to be damaged and a bit messed up and confused a bit annoying. Lots of people aren't messed up and I don't like the suggestion here and in other books/culture that suggests being messed up is good or you can't really know what's life like without it.

However, it chimed with teenage feelings and took me back. I recognised the popular people who actually liked some unpopular people but didn't socially acknowledge them. I recognised the poor communication of some early adults and misunderstandings and break-ups and lots of people struggling to commit or know what they wanted.

I didn't relate so much to their underlying difficulties - so Marianne's horrible family that gave her low self-worth, or Connel's anxiety (although I could see that is probably quite widespread) but I think the story wouldn't have worked without a backstory to explainnwhybthry behaved as they do.

Are they normal people? Marianne didn't strike me as typical - fortunately most people don't have a family like hers. Are all people damaged? Some are by the age of 18 and actually I think lots fortunately aren't. The older we get, the more of us have been damaged by something in our lives.

So, I actually really enjoyed it as a poignant return to the feelings of young adults, but also seen through my eyes as a more mature adult, who perhaps has a wider view of the world.

The college scenes chimed with me too. At uni, we often did have quite deep conversations and go to some fancy parties. There were a number of people from wealthy backgrounds as well as those from much poorer backgrounds and it was a chance for everyone who'd had a limited life until 18 to see something if how others live. Perhaps it depends on where you went to uni, but that sense of 20 year olds feeling intellectually invincible did resonate with me too.

I'd have loved it as a teenager. I'd have found it terribly romantic. I still kind of do, but I know it's based on a false premiss of sexual attraction being at the heart of everything and therefore it's hollow for me. Would they have still been together at 40. I very much doubt it, in the same way Baby and Jonny wouldn't have been together at 40 after Dirty Dancing. But a turbulent teenage love with lots of angst has its place.

Yes Connell did treat her like dirt... I can see why she didn't travel off to the states with him at the end. She had come into her own. Also different sexual tastes altogether. But I still loved it

I loved it. But it’s pretty much my exact experience of Uni (I went to Trinity) and I identified with Connell to the degree that he may as well have been a male version of myself.

Oh and they filmed some scenes around the corner from my house, which I got a ridiculous kick out of.

I can understand why someone not as personally invested as me wouldn’t have rated it particularly highly.

Yea me too! What’s all the fuss about? Fairly boring

But it wasn’t a relationship just based on sexual attraction. That feeling of ‘just right’ doesn’t happen with everyone, not even people you fancy the arse off.

@TooExtraImmatureCheddar *
*
Foam parties, tequila shots and snogging randoms was more my uni experience.

Yes, same here 😂.

I add to that: san moritz god awful fake tan, 'raves' in railway arches, awful food, and no luxurious Italian villas but we did go to Kavos at the end of first year. Different world.

I've only seen the TV series and not read the book, but I got the impression that it was very much sexual attraction, plus some intellectual connection too. I thought that when they say 'it's not like this with other people' it always about the sex and that they do have a sexual connection.

Is there ever any suggestion they have quality communication which takes the relationship beyond physical? Thinking about it, are the emailed correspondences meant to suggest communication going on at a deeper level....but is that really present if they never can talk about how they feel and what they want?

I never got the impression M was actually genuinely interested in all the submission/bondage stuff. I thought it was her way of showing she didn't value herself but she didn't actually get a sexual kick out of it. She always looks bored or hating it. So I never thought she actually really wanted Connel to hit her either...not really ....she just had low self esteem and didn't know how to express herself in any other way. Worrying that she had 'learned' that from the 2 horrible boyfriends as a new way to debate herself, when she hadn't known that early on in the relationship with Connel. Her low self esteem seemed to make her focus in on any method of self debasement - so all kinds of other signs of low self esteem and self harm wouldn't have been surprising later on. And I'd say she was a relationship saboteur. Even if she was happy, she as the kind of person who would knowingly or unknowingly wreck the relationship. That's why I don't think it would have lasted. She really was very damaged, although I don't think he was in the same way.

Fortunately most people aren't damaged like Marianne and so despite teenage relationship difficulties are capable of forming relationships when they have the maturity to do it. I didn't get any sense she was really working things through and moving forward, but perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps that's why she wanted to stay in Ireland, because she was just starting to and needed more time on that phase before going into the next.