Leigh’s Reviews > Normal People > Status Update

“He has sincerely wanted to die, but he has never sincerely wanted Marianne to forget about him. That’s the only part of himself he wants to protect — the part that exists inside her.”

We’ve hit the conventional low point of the rom com, right on schedule I guess, though Rooney’s formalist time-manipulation still leaves us in suspense about whether the worst is over. (Did something happen after the dinner party to drive her into the self-destructive semester in Sweden? I can’t remember whether we’ve been told this)

“His attraction to her felt like an oncoming train, and he threw her under it.”