Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


So young and so talented!

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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This author is younger than I am. I mean, so is my author friend, but Sally Rooney was born in THE NINETIES and is this talented. Blown away. But that’s not about this book. Normal People is about Marianne and Connell, growing up in a small town in western (I believe) Ireland. They exist in two separate worlds that collide in one very specific place – her family home, where his mother works as a housekeeper. Outside of that, she is the quiet, weird, rich girl while […]

…his attraction to her felt terrifying, like an oncoming train, and he threw her under it.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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Wow. I’m not exactly sure where to start with this one. This was my book club’s pick for June and it is killing me that I will be out of town and unable to discuss it. Classmates at school, Marianne and Connell operate in completely different spheres. He hangs out with the popular kids, plays sports and is raised by a single mother who is a house cleaner. Marianne is mostly a loner, unpopular at school and lives with her wealthy widowed mother and brother. […]

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.”

Normal Peopl by Sally Rooney

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After the longest wait I can remember on the library hold list, I finally brought Normal People home last weekend. Intrigued by the amazing review from my trusted cannonball family, but still unsure of what to expect from Sally Rooney’s award-winning novel, I dove in headfirst and barely came up for air until I was finished. We have a friend’s 12 year old son staying with us this week while his parents prep for a move across the country this summer, and he saw the […]

“Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything,”

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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It has been a long time since I absolutely demolished a novel in less than 24 hours. I had waited months for my turn to come up on the library hold list for Normal People so a soon as I officially finished Good Omens I ignored the other books sitting on my kitchen table and settled in to see what jeverett15 and dAvid experienced that led them both to rating it so highly. I very quickly understood and am myself rating it five stars, rounding […]

A long sigh

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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Normal People is a quiet, thoughtful meditation on the ways we influence each other- for both better and worse. Connell and Marianne attend school together as teenagers but pretend not to notice each other during school hours. After school, they gradually develop a relationship that affects the next four years of their lives (and likely much longer). Whether together or apart, as friend or foe or lover, the existence of the one marks the actions of the other. This is less a love story and […]

Abnormally Good

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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Somebody saw me carrying Sally Rooney’s new novel, Normal People, and asked me what it was about. In the moment I was a little stymied. This person was just looking to make casual conversation in an elevator, not hear my detailed analysis. I wound up just telling him it was about a rich girl and a working-class boy and their on-again, off-again relationship. Despite being true, that’s woefully inadequate. So here’s what Normal People is about: It’s about all the ways we hurt other people […]



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