Rooney, Sally. Normal People. Faber and Faber, London, 2018. F;5/19.

This is a love story beginning in high school and carrying into young adulthood. Wealthy Marianne is brilliant but a social recluse, Connell is if anything even smarter but his mum is Marianne’s mother’s cleaning lady. They circle one another for awhile and then connect, but conduct their relationship in an on-again off-again pattern based on their very intelligent and universal honest insights.

Rooney is young (28 I think) but writes with consistent transparency, at the same time somehow with reassuring humanity. It’s a great read as story but also an intelligent closely-reasoned analysis of contemporary romantic love. Highly recommended. 8.8/9.2