Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

…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 […]

I’ve read this story before, and so have you (but it’s still pretty great)

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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For years, being a (now recovering) literary fiction snob with a preference for British Commonwealth authors, I’ve followed the Man Booker Prize long- and shortlists as a way to find new books, and since I still need a regular fix of literary fiction even as I explore new genres, I’ve started to look to other prizes to expand my library. With Sally Rooney’s Normal People appearing on the Booker longlist and winning the Costa Novel Award, it was an obvious choice, especially as I continue […]



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