At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.
sexromancecontemporaryDublin (ireland)fictionMan-woman relationshipsliterary fictionNew York Times bestsellerNew York Times reviewedFiction, romance, contemporaryDublin (ireland), fictionMan-woman relationships, fiction
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Character
Contemporary, earnest, grave and classical in form.
- contemporarynostalgic
- earnestironic
- gravecomic
- classical in formformally daring
- character-ledplot-driven
Who loves it, who doesn't
9 profiled raters. Loved most by The Empaths.
Reviews
- june_bugThe Comfort Seeker★★★★★
I read it in one sitting and then lay on the floor. Rooney writes miscommunication like a horror writer writes a basement.
Pairings
Companions we picked from the closest works, and how to take them.
Similar in taste
Closest on the same fourteen dimensions, from everything scored on Curator Co. Other media included when they land close.
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