I just wrapped up Sally Rooney’s “Normal People,” and I can’t help but wonder if anyone else struggles to anticipate her endings. The journey through the book was nice, even though it started as reading too much like a YA novel. It matured gradually and grew on me. I just somehow didn’t anticipate the open-ended conclusion. I expected it to have a clean-cut, simpler finish, being, in essence, a love story.
It wasn’t necessarily a negative thing, I appreciate the realism, but there’s something about the ambiguity that makes it hard to come to terms with.
Does anybody have an interpretation to help with closure? Because I can’t really think of any right now.
by randomchick94
3 Comments
I actually really liked the ending and thought it was very realistic.
I’m my opinion the ending of the book made sense in the context of the whole story. The two never had a classic love story. They weren’t right for each other and both put each other on a pedestal because they were first loves. They could never fulfil what the other wanted from one another.
When they finally end up together and one decides to move away for a job this seems like a perfect ending for the relationship and seems like a very realistic ending. Young love doesn’t last and doesn’t need to. I think they both realized that they both loved each other once but it was time to move on.
I thought the point of the ending is that they could trust their intertwinedness. That they could be apart temporarily because they knew that they would ultimately always be together.
I ended up being unimpressed