source: libby
rating:★★✩✩✩
from goodreads:
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.
my review:
i really don’t know how to feel about this book. it was good but it was just very peculiar. the writing was very bland and i didn’t like the fact that i didn’t really know who was talking or what they were even talking about. it took me really long to read and i couldn't really figure out the point of this book. lorraine and connell were my favorite characters. lorraine was the motherly instinct that was needed in this book. connell was also out of sorts but had a really good heart. i really liked that connell was on marianne’s side but also didn’t like the way he treated her in some ways. marianne was also just an odd ball herself and i get that it gave the book the character that it needed but this book just wasn’t for me. it was very odd and very uninteresting. just not my cup of tea. almost DNF it but it kept my attention enough to keep reading.
favorite quotes:
“Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.”