Recommendations from our site
“I loved how she used the blueprint of the love triangle – two young gay women get emotionally, and sexually, embroiled with an older, more urbane couple in Dublin – in a way that made it seem fresh and unexpected. Nothing feels clichéd or familiar. She is so strong on dialogue and there is something both youthful and deeply mature in her writing. It’s really exhilarating to read a debut that’s so good.” Read more...
If you’ve somehow made it this far without reading Rooney’s previous novel – her rollicking, quick-smart debut Conversations With Friends – then we suggest you correct this immediately. It follows performance poets and Trinity College students Frances and Bobbi as they fall in with (and fall for) an older married couple, Nick and Melissa. It’s full of snappy dialogue and searching questions about what love, jealousy and infidelity might mean, in a non-monogamous, non-heteronormative world. Full of snappy dialogue and earnest debate, it’s as much a portrayal of obsessive friendship as a two-headed love story, and it cleverly subverts many of the tropes of the romantic comedy without losing their appeal. (Also available – and highly recommended – is Rooney’s short Mr Salary, shortlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and published as a mini paperback by Faber.)
From our article Books like Normal People
