Reviews
Advance praise for Normal People : "I couldn''t put Normal People down--I didn''t think I could love it as much as Conversations with Friends , but I did. Sally Rooney is a treasure. I can''t wait to see what she does next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and The Possessed "This is one the best novels I have read in years. Sally Rooney understands the complexities of love, its radical intimacy, and how power is always shifting between people, and she tells her story in a way that feels new and old at the same time. It is intelligent, spare and mesmerizing, and it sent me back to an earlier point in my life in such a vivid and real way, reanimating for me with that period of time (first love), which I had thought was lost to me forever, but which felt born again in the form of this book." -- Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be "It is time to take a sharp inhale, people. After the success of Conversations With Friends , Sally Rooney has produced a second novel, Normal People which will be just as successful as it deserves to be: it is superb...[T]he truth is that this novel is about human connection and I found it difficult to disconnect. It is a long time since I cared so much about two characters on a page." -- Anne Enright, The Irish Times "Rooney homes in on what she''s best at - describing people, with all their conceits and self-delusions, weaknesses and virtues. She does this with unsparing acuity and extraordinary sensitivity... There''s arch humor in her insights too." -- The Times (UK) "Beautifully observed and profoundly moving, I could scale new heights of hyperbole trying to describe how good this book is, but really, you just need to read it." -- The Bookseller (UK) Praise for Conversations with Friends : "A writer of rare confidence, with a lucid, exacting style... [O]ne wonderful aspect of Rooney''s consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge... But Rooney''s natural power is as a psychological portraitist. She is acute and sophisticated about the workings of innocence; the protagonist of this novel about growing up has no idea just how much of it she has left to do." - The New Yorker "Rooney has the gift of imbuing everyday life with a sense of high stakes...a novel of delicious frictions." - New York Magazine "I love debuts where you just can''t believe that it was a debut... Conversations with Friends paints a nuanced, page-turning portrait of a whip-smart university student in the throes of an affair with an older married man." - Zadie Smith, Elle "The dialogue is superb, as are the insights about communicating in the age of electronic devices. Rooney has a magical ability to write scenes of such verisimilitude that even when little happens they''re suspenseful." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The Week "Sharp, funny, thought-provoking . . . a really great portrait of two young women as they''re figuring out how to be adults." - Celeste Ng, "Late Night with Seth Meyers Podcast" "This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I''m not alone." - Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram) "The self-deceptions of a new generation are at the core of Sally Rooney''s debut, Conversations With Friends (Hogarth), which captures something wonderfully odd-cornered and real in the story of an Irish millennial..." - Megan O''Grady, Vogue ''s 10 Best Books of 2017 "[A] bracing, miraculous debut." - The Millions, "[Rooney] has invented a sensibility entirely of her own: sunny and sharp, free of artifice but overflowing with wisdom and intensity. . . . The novel touches on class, politics, and power dynamics and brims with the sparky, witty conversation that Rooney's fans will recognize." -- Vogue "A future classic." -- The Guardian " Rooney is a tough girl; her papercut-sharp sensibility is much more akin to writers like Rachel Kushner, Mary Gaitskill, and the pre- Manhattan Beach Jennifer Egan . . . . Normal People is a nuanced and flinty love story about two young people who 'get' each other, despite class differences and the interference of their own vigorous personal demons. But honestly, Sally Rooney could write a novel about bath mats and I'd still read it. She's that good and that singular a writer." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "[Rooney] has written two fresh and accessible novels. . . . There is so much to say about Rooney's fiction--in my experience, when people who've read her meet they tend to peel off into corners to talk." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times "[Rooney's] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners . . . are tender portraits of Irish college students. . . . Remarkably precise--she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks ."-- New York Review of Books " Normal People tackles millennial concerns with nineteenth-century wit . . . the millennial generation would no doubt be happy to accept her as its spokesperson were she so inclined." -- Elle "I'm transfixed by the way Rooney works, and I'm hardly the only one . . . like any confident couturier, she's slicing the free flow of words into the perfect shape. . . . She writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has." -- The Paris Review "Funny and intellectually agile . . . [combines] deft social observation--especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups--with acute feeling . . . [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two." -- Harper's Magazine "Beautifully observed . . . crackles with vivid insight into what it means to be young and in love today." -- Esquire "I went into a tunnel with this book and didn't want to come out. Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heart-breaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves. Young love is a subject of much scorn, but Rooney understands the cataclysmic effects our youth has on the people we become. She has restored not only love's dignity, but also its significance." --Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter "Masterfully done. The quality of Rooney's writing, particularly in the psychologically wrought sex scenes, cannot be understated as she brilliantly provides a window into her protagonists' true selves." -- BookPage (starred review), "[Rooney's] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners . . . are tender portraits of Irish college students. . . . Remarkably precise -- she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks ."-- New York Review of Books " Normal People tackles millennial concerns with nineteenth-century wit . . . the millennial generation would no doubt be happy to accept her as its spokesperson were she so inclined." -- Elle "I'm transfixed by the way Rooney works, and I'm hardly the only one . . . like any confident couturier, she's slicing the free flow of words into the perfect shape. . . . She writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has." -- The Paris Review "Funny and intellectually agile . . . [combines] deft social observation--especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups--with acute feeling . . . [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two." -- Harper's Magazine "Beautifully observed . . . crackles with vivid insight into what it means to be young and in love today." -- Esquire "Masterfully done. The quality of Rooney's writing, particularly in the psychologically wrought sex scenes, cannot be understated as she brilliantly provides a window into her protagonists' true selves." -- Bookpage (starred review) "I went into a tunnel with this book and didn't want to come out. Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heart-breaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves. Young love is a subject of much scorn, but Rooney understands the cataclysmic effects our youth has on the people we become. She has restored not only love's dignity, but also its significance." --Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter "Rooney crafts a devastating story from a series of everyday sorrows by delicately traversing female and male anxieties over sex, class, and popularity. This is a magnificent novel." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This superb book more than lives up to the high expectations set for it. . . . Showcasing Rooney's focus and ability in building character relationships that are as subtle and infinite as real-life ones, and her perceptive portrayal of class, Normal People gets at the hard work of becoming a person and the near impossibility of knowing if a first love is a true one." -- Booklist (starred review) "In outline it's a simple story, but Rooney tells it with bravura intelligence, wit, and delicacy. Rooney's genius lies in her ability to track her characters' subtle shifts in power, both within themselves and in relation to each other. . . . Absolutely enthralling. Read it." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "This brilliantly nuanced second novel fulfills the promise evident in the stunning debut. . . . Rooney is a formidable talent. A major literary achievement." -- Library Journal (starred review), Advance praise for Normal People : "I couldn't put Normal People down--I didn't think I could love it as much as Conversations with Friends , but I did. Sally Rooney is a treasure. I can't wait to see what she does next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and The Possessed "This is one the best novels I have read in years. Sally Rooney understands the complexities of love, its radical intimacy, and how power is always shifting between people, and she tells her story in a way that feels new and old at the same time. It is intelligent, spare and mesmerizing, and it sent me back to an earlier point in my life in such a vivid and real way, reanimating for me with that period of time (first love), which I had thought was lost to me forever, but which felt born again in the form of this book." -- Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be "Rooney homes in on what she's best at - describing people, with all their conceits and self-delusions, weaknesses and virtues. She does this with unsparing acuity and extraordinary sensitivity... There's arch humor in her insights too." -- The Times (UK) "Beautifully observed and profoundly moving, I could scale new heights of hyperbole trying to describe how good this book is, but really, you just need to read it." -- The Bookseller (UK) Praise for Conversations with Friends : "A writer of rare confidence, with a lucid, exacting style... [O]ne wonderful aspect of Rooney's consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge... But Rooney's natural power is as a psychological portraitist. She is acute and sophisticated about the workings of innocence; the protagonist of this novel about growing up has no idea just how much of it she has left to do." - The New Yorker "Rooney has the gift of imbuing everyday life with a sense of high stakes...a novel of delicious frictions." - New York Magazine "I love debuts where you just can't believe that it was a debut... Conversations with Friends paints a nuanced, page-turning portrait of a whip-smart university student in the throes of an affair with an older married man." - Zadie Smith, Elle "The dialogue is superb, as are the insights about communicating in the age of electronic devices. Rooney has a magical ability to write scenes of such verisimilitude that even when little happens they're suspenseful." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The Week "Sharp, funny, thought-provoking . . . a really great portrait of two young women as they're figuring out how to be adults." - Celeste Ng, "Late Night with Seth Meyers Podcast" "This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I'm not alone." - Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram) "The self-deceptions of a new generation are at the core of Sally Rooney's debut, Conversations With Friends (Hogarth), which captures something wonderfully odd-cornered and real in the story of an Irish millennial..." - Megan O'Grady, Vogue 's 10 Best Books of 2017 "[A] bracing, miraculous debut." - The Millions, Advance praise for Normal People : "Sally Rooney''s Normal People is the deeply felt story of a foundational relationship at the margin of friendship and true love, of shame and devotion. This inventive and profound novel proves what great fiction can do--it can open a world at the seams." --Emma Straub, author of Modern Lovers and The Vacationers "I couldn''t put Normal People down--I didn''t think I could love it as much as Conversations with Friends , but I did. Sally Rooney is a treasure. I can''t wait to see what she does next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and The Possessed "This is one the best novels I have read in years. Sally Rooney understands the complexities of love, its radical intimacy, and how power is always shifting between people, and she tells her story in a way that feels new and old at the same time. It is intelligent, spare and mesmerizing, and it sent me back to an earlier point in my life in such a vivid and real way, reanimating for me with that period of time (first love), which I had thought was lost to me forever, but which felt born again in the form of this book." -- Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? "It is time to take a sharp inhale, people. After the success of Conversations With Friends , Sally Rooney has produced a second novel, Normal People which will be just as successful as it deserves to be: it is superb...[T]he truth is that this novel is about human connection and I found it difficult to disconnect. It is a long time since I cared so much about two characters on a page." -- Anne Enright, The Irish Times "Rooney homes in on what she''s best at - describing people, with all their conceits and self-delusions, weaknesses and virtues. She does this with unsparing acuity and extraordinary sensitivity... There''s arch humor in her insights too." -- The Times (UK) "Beautifully observed and profoundly moving, I could scale new heights of hyperbole trying to describe how good this book is, but really, you just need to read it." -- The Bookseller (UK) Praise for Conversations with Friends : "A writer of rare confidence, with a lucid, exacting style... [O]ne wonderful aspect of Rooney''s consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge... But Rooney''s natural power is as a psychological portraitist. She is acute and sophisticated about the workings of innocence; the protagonist of this novel about growing up has no idea just how much of it she has left to do." - The New Yorker "Rooney has the gift of imbuing everyday life with a sense of high stakes...a novel of delicious frictions." - New York Magazine "I love debuts where you just can''t believe that it was a debut... Conversations with Friends paints a nuanced, page-turning portrait of a whip-smart university student in the throes of an affair with an older married man." - Zadie Smith, Elle "The dialogue is superb, as are the insights about communicating in the age of electronic devices. Rooney has a magical ability to write scenes of such verisimilitude that even when little happens they''re suspenseful." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The Week "Sharp, funny, thought-provoking . . . a really great portrait of two young women as they''re figuring out how to be adults." - Celeste Ng, "Late Night with Seth Meyers Podcast" "This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I''m not alone." - Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram) "The self-deceptions of a new generation are at the core of Sally Rooney''s debut, Conversations With Friends (Hogarth), which captures something wonderfully odd-cornered and real in the story of an Irish millennial..." - Megan O''Grady, Vogue ''s 10 Best Books of 2017 "[A] bracing, miraculous debut." - The Millions, Advance praise for Normal People : "I couldn't put Normal People down--I didn't think I could love it as much as Conversations with Friends , but I did. Sally Rooney is a treasure. I can't wait to see what she does next." --Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot and The Possessed Praise for Conversations with Friends : "A writer of rare confidence, with a lucid, exacting style... [O]ne wonderful aspect of Rooney's consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge... But Rooney's natural power is as a psychological portraitist. She is acute and sophisticated about the workings of innocence; the protagonist of this novel about growing up has no idea just how much of it she has left to do." - The New Yorker "Rooney has the gift of imbuing everyday life with a sense of high stakes...a novel of delicious frictions." - New York Magazine "I love debuts where you just can't believe that it was a debut... Conversations with Friends paints a nuanced, page-turning portrait of a whip-smart university student in the throes of an affair with an older married man." - Zadie Smith, Elle "The dialogue is superb, as are the insights about communicating in the age of electronic devices. Rooney has a magical ability to write scenes of such verisimilitude that even when little happens they're suspenseful." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The Week "Sharp, funny, thought-provoking . . . a really great portrait of two young women as they're figuring out how to be adults." - Celeste Ng, "Late Night with Seth Meyers Podcast" "This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I'm not alone." - Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram) "The self-deceptions of a new generation are at the core of Sally Rooney's debut, Conversations With Friends (Hogarth), which captures something wonderfully odd-cornered and real in the story of an Irish millennial..." - Megan O'Grady, Vogue 's 10 Best Books of 2017 "[A] bracing, miraculous debut." - The Millions, "[Rooney's] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners . . . are tender portraits of Irish college students. . . . Remarkably precise -- she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks ."-- New York Review of Books " Normal People tackles millennial concerns with nineteenth-century wit . . . the millennial generation would no doubt be happy to accept her as its spokesperson were she so inclined." -- Elle "I'm transfixed by the way Rooney works, and I'm hardly the only one . . . like any confident couturier, she's slicing the free flow of words into the perfect shape. . . . She writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has." -- The Paris Review "Funny and intellectually agile . . . [combines] deft social observation--especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups--with acute feeling . . . [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two." -- Harper's Magazine "Beautifully observed . . . crackles with vivid insight into what it means to be young and in love today." -- Esquire "I went into a tunnel with this book and didn't want to come out. Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heart-breaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves. Young love is a subject of much scorn, but Rooney understands the cataclysmic effects our youth has on the people we become. She has restored not only love's dignity, but also its significance." --Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter "Masterfully done. The quality of Rooney's writing, particularly in the psychologically wrought sex scenes, cannot be understated as she brilliantly provides a window into her protagonists' true selves." -- Bookpage (starred review) "Rooney crafts a devastating story from a series of everyday sorrows by delicately traversing female and male anxieties over sex, class, and popularity. This is a magnificent novel." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This superb book more than lives up to the high expectations set for it. . . . Showcasing Rooney's focus and ability in building character relationships that are as subtle and infinite as real-life ones, and her perceptive portrayal of class, Normal People gets at the hard work of becoming a person and the near impossibility of knowing if a first love is a true one." -- Booklist (starred review) "In outline it's a simple story, but Rooney tells it with bravura intelligence, wit, and delicacy. Rooney's genius lies in her ability to track her characters' subtle shifts in power, both within themselves and in relation to each other. . . . Absolutely enthralling. Read it." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "This brilliantly nuanced second novel fulfills the promise evident in the stunning debut. . . . Rooney is a formidable talent. A major literary achievement." -- Library Journal (starred review), "[Rooney] has invented a sensibility entirely of her own: sunny and sharp, free of artifice but overflowing with wisdom and intensity. . . . The novel touches on class, politics, and power dynamics and brims with the sparky, witty conversation that Rooney's fans will recognize." -- Vogue " Rooney is a tough girl; her papercut-sharp sensibility is much more akin to writers like Rachel Kushner, Mary Gaitskill, and the pre- Manhattan Beach Jennifer Egan . . . . Normal People is a nuanced and flinty love story about two young people who 'get' each other, despite class differences and the interference of their own vigorous personal demons. But honestly, Sally Rooney could write a novel about bath mats and I'd still read it. She's that good and that singular a writer." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "[Rooney] has written two fresh and accessible novels. . . . There is so much to say about Rooney's fiction--in my experience, when people who've read her meet they tend to peel off into corners to talk." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times "[Rooney's] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners . . . are tender portraits of Irish college students. . . . Remarkably precise -- she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks ."-- New York Review of Books " Normal People tackles millennial concerns with nineteenth-century wit . . . the millennial generation would no doubt be happy to accept her as its spokesperson were she so inclined." -- Elle "I'm transfixed by the way Rooney works, and I'm hardly the only one . . . like any confident couturier, she's slicing the free flow of words into the perfect shape. . . . She writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has." -- The Paris Review "Funny and intellectually agile . . . [combines] deft social observation--especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups--with acute feeling . . . [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two." -- Harper's Magazine "Beautifully observed . . . crackles with vivid insight into what it means to be young and in love today." -- Esquire "I went into a tunnel with this book and didn't want to come out. Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heart-breaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves. Young love is a subject of much scorn, but Rooney understands the cataclysmic effects our youth has on the people we become. She has restored not only love's dignity, but also its significance." --Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter "Masterfully done. The quality of Rooney's writing, particularly in the psychologically wrought sex scenes, cannot be understated as she brilliantly provides a window into her protagonists' true selves." -- Bookpage (starred review), "[Rooney] has invented a sensibility entirely of her own: sunny and sharp, free of artifice but overflowing with wisdom and intensity. . . . The novel touches on class, politics, and power dynamics and brims with the sparky, witty conversation that Rooney's fans will recognize." -- Vogue " Rooney is a tough girl; her papercut-sharp sensibility is much more akin to writers like Rachel Kushner, Mary Gaitskill, and the pre- Manhattan Beach Jennifer Egan . . . . Normal People is a nuanced and flinty love story about two young people who 'get' each other, despite class differences and the interference of their own vigorous personal demons. But honestly, Sally Rooney could write a novel about bath mats and I'd still read it. She's that good and that singular a writer." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "[Rooney] has written two fresh and accessible novels. . . . There is so much to say about Rooney's fiction--in my experience, when people who've read her meet they tend to peel off into corners to talk." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times "[Rooney's] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners . . . are tender portraits of Irish college students. . . . Remarkably precise--she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks ."-- New York Review of Books " Normal People tackles millennial concerns with nineteenth-century wit . . . the millennial generation would no doubt be happy to accept her as its spokesperson were she so inclined." -- Elle "I'm transfixed by the way Rooney works, and I'm hardly the only one . . . like any confident couturier, she's slicing the free flow of words into the perfect shape. . . . She writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has." -- The Paris Review "Funny and intellectually agile . . . [combines] deft social observation--especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups--with acute feeling . . . [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two." -- Harper's Magazine "Beautifully observed . . . crackles with vivid insight into what it means to be young and in love today." -- Esquire "I went into a tunnel with this book and didn't want to come out. Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heart-breaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves. Young love is a subject of much scorn, but Rooney understands the cataclysmic effects our youth has on the people we become. She has restored not only love's dignity, but also its significance." --Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter "Masterfully done. The quality of Rooney's writing, particularly in the psychologically wrought sex scenes, cannot be understated as she brilliantly provides a window into her protagonists' true selves." -- Bookpage (starred review)
