Normal People on BBC3

[Bouledeneige]

Binge watched it yesterday and loved it. Emotional, passionate and two really great leads. Thoroughly recommend it (so long as you don't mind lots of love scenes). Cried lie and felt bereft when it finished.

Yes to Anne Hathaway. I thought the book was similar to One Day too. Didn’t like either of them much.

Binge watch with a love hate relationship with Connell particularly. Completely fell in love with both characters from the episodes charting Marianne in ‘Sweden’ and Connell’s depression. The whole story fell into place and became so relevant to me then. Thought the ending perfect. Both so empowered as a result of their relationship. No one in my family knows, but I am rewatching. It’s my guilty secret.

31133004 aged 56

@HesSpartacus, yes, it was a bit mad in the novel. I have not got to that point in the series yet, but maybe the problem is that we only hear what the characters say aloud, not their internal monologues, which would make it even weirder?

In the novel, Connell loses his Dublin job and can’t afford to pay rent in the city over the summer, and is desperately hoping that Marianne, who is rich and oblivious to the fact that he’s dirt poor, will ask him to move in for a few months to the family flat she lives in for free. But he won’t actually ask her.

She appears to have not noticed that Connell is poor — which is odd, given that his mother cleans for hers and she notices he always wears the same clothes — and assumes he’s going home for the summer just because he wants to. Hence the ‘So you’ll want to see other people?’ stuff.

When it could all have been cleared up if they’d Used Their Words.

Plurabellicose Exactly - though until that point, they'd been so in love they's been able to read each other's mind except any time it actually mattered

*they'd

Yes, I agree about the whole summer thing - if they were so in love a few months wouldn’t have mattered. Also why did Marianne start dating so quickly afterwards? Wouldn’t they really have had a conversation about money either?

A friend of mine thinks Sally Rooney is consciously making a point about the supposedly sensitive Marianne's obliviousness to her privilege (so that she doesn't notice that the friend she adores sexually and intellectually and sees all the time is on his uppers, while she cares passionately about geographically distant economic/political issues), but I'm not entirely convinced.

I think I get mildly irked in the novel by the way that all the other women in Connell's life apart from brilliant, jolie-laide, independent-minded, original Marianne are presented in terms of lazy clichés --from Sadie the Silly-Named Gushing Literary Groupie to boring, clean-cut Helen the med student with her nice teeth and gym kit, and Karen at school, who is like a thirdhand sketch of a cliché bitchy Mean Girl.

Likewise all of Marianne's boyfriends are obnoxious and/or sexually abusive.

I dont have a problem with some of the plot devices others have difficulties with but that's because I have strong memories of very similar experiences.

I thought the way he treated her in school was awful, definitely wasn't a great love story.
It is the same in the book and in the movie, yet in the book because we can read their inner thoughts it comes across so much worse.
He was truly ashamed and mortified that people might found out and she was happy to go along with the secrecy because she knew how mortifying and ashamed he'd be if people found out.
I think it was so so sad.

He might have been a gentleman when asking for consent and so on but could surely have caused some emotional/sexual trauma because of secrecy and making her feel like she was a dirty little secret!

Did anyone hate Jamie intensely from his first appearance? Total prick

Did anyone hate Jamie intensely from his first appearance? Total prick

Yes. And the scene in Italy round the table was just excruciating.

Did anyone hate Jamie intensely from his first appearance? Total prick

Yes, but we were supposed to. Great casting!

I've read so much gushing about this on Facebook, glad to see some people on here with the same opinions as me
. Found it watchable but on the dull side, didnt really care what happened to either character.

Agree with pps saying it was a bit teen porny. Just because he asked for consent didnt make it less gratuitous. There will have been a lot of men watching it who weren't interested in the literary merits.

Yes to Daisy Edgar Jones looking like Ann Hathaway.

I've also just realised where I've seen Lorraine from. She's Sarah Greene, who played Hecate Pool in Penny Dreadful and was engaged to Aidan Turner at one point.

I am enjoying the college years more than the early episodes.

I think the sex scenes between the two leads were handled sensitively and well done. It didn't seem gratuitous to me by today's standards and if all people see is porn in those sex scenes, then I think they're rather missing the point.

It's not Game of Thrones.

Oh my goodness I'm loving this, I'm mid-binge watch.

What's strange is I normally advocate the book being better than any TV version but I couldn't get into the writing style at all so abandoned it. I may well re-read it now.

Also sex is a massive part of love and relationships, especially your first love. I think the focus is just right.

I hope they DON'T drag it out for a sequel I mean!

I thought Daisy Edgar-Jones accent wasn't very good as I believe she's English, sometimes you get really dodgy accents but I wouldn't have known any different. But maybe if you were Irish you'd have been able to tell.

Sorry I got my post deleted because of something spoilery. In short I loved it.

I thought it was a bit strange that Marianne's original boyfriend made a big deal about Connell coming from Sligo but not about Marianne herself. He wasn't very bright was he?

@covetingthepreciousthings

I'm Irish, I thought she had a gorgeous accent and did it really well. I assumed she was English when I saw the trailer, she has an English rose face to me :) I googled her and her dad is Scottish and her mother is from Northern Ireland though.

The only time I heard her accent slip is the bit in the trailer where she says "I feel nothing for you". I don't think it reverted to her own accent but it didn't sound right.

Also sex is a massive part of love and relationships, especially your first love. I think the focus is just right.

Yes I agree with this.

The sex isn't bothering me but I'm only six episodes in. I don't think it's gratuitous. I'm also wondering if people just think she looks really young because she's quite flat chested? Because other than that she looks exactly the age she's supposed to be to me. I like that she has pubic hair though, don't see much of that these days!

I can't decide if Connal is abusive or just completely emotionally immature. Interesting points by a pp about Marianne not noticing how poor he is, that had actually gone over my head a bit but you're right.

I'm also wondering if people just think she looks really young because she's quite flat chested? Because other than that she looks exactly the age she's supposed to be to me. I like that she has pubic hair though, don't see much of that these days!

I wondered if that might be it, along with plaited hair and school uniform. I don't think it helped that he looked older than her either.

Also agree on the pubic hair front!