8 August 2020: Earlier this summer, I burned through Sally Rooney's Normal People (the book). Just today, I finished watching the television adaptation. Hot take (that isn't incredibly rare): I liked the TV show more--and I liked the book a lot.
Those lead performances just killed me. It's so achingly beautiful and heartbreaking. Scenes that made me feel moved in the book were even more poignant and moving on screen. I teared up more than once. (I went back and listened to Pop Culture Happy Hour and Slate Culture Gabfest episodes about it that I first listened to before I had read/watched. My take lies much closer to PCCH's, particularly Katie Presley's comments.)
It's kind of hard to articulate right now just what I found so moving, but I think it's the way both characters (especially Connell) just can't say what they are feeling because they are so scared of what will happen. The reasons for that reticence shift and change, but when it is because they are afraid of being hurt or rejected? It's just too much.
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