Genre: Romance, fiction

Audience: Adult

Themes: abusive intercourse, traumatic human experience, suicide, loss, depression

★★★


I feel fortunate to have quenched my curiosity of this book. As you can imagine, this book is about normal people, living normal lives. You have the ability to see yourself in these characters which for a character driven reader like myself is desirable. This is a story of longing for love and looking for it in all the wrong places, deep unfulfilled loneliness, depression and the hardships of the human experience.

I will say that I hated relating to Marianne. My own trauma and emotions were stirred up in this book through her experience. We have all felt the effects of feeling unliveable and “maybe it’ll happen for you but not for me”. This book made me question just how deeply I feel this. I’ve been on my self love journey for a while now and this book made it clear to me that there is still things to be learned and loved. I felt Marianne so deeply and it was painful.

The dynamic between our lovers at the start of the book reminded me of a hybrid between Jenna and Matty (awkward) and the couple in A Walk to Remember. My blood pressure rises every time Sally Rooney suggests that Connell could be ashamed of Marianne.