Still annoyed about my book club fight over "normal people"

Last month my book club picked Sally Rooney's Normal People and I said I thought the characters were just bad at communicating and it turned into a 45 minute argument. One woman kept insisting it was a deep commentary on class struggle in Ireland. I get that there's layers to it but sometimes a person can just be awkward without it being a metaphor. Has anyone else's book club gotten weirdly intense about a popular book?

2 comments

2 Comments

felix4781d ago

Respectfully disagree with your take. The class stuff is literally woven into every interaction they have, even the awkward silences.

taylor_moore21h ago

You nailed it, Felix. It's in everything they do, every single pause, every glance. You can feel the split in the room just by how people stand around the cooler. The guys who went to college lean against one wall, the ones who worked with their hands lean against the other, and nobody talks about it but it's screaming. I watched a dude offer someone a beer at a BBQ and the way he said it, all apologetic like he was doing charity, you could tell he was from money trying to act normal. It's not something you can fake either, that ease. You either grew up with it or you didn't, and everyone else can tell.