Review 'Normal People' by Sally Rooney

Although this one had been on my TBR list since release date, I only decided to purchase Normal People after watching the BBC adaptation of the novel (I don't know if it's socially acceptable for a self-proclaimed book blogger to admit this, but the TV show was so well-done and addictive that I'm not at all embarrassed by my frankness).

In any case, flash forward one year after I finished watching the TV show and I finally finished Sally Rooney's 2018 best-selling novel Normal People. The story follows Connell and Marianne through various years and stages in their young adult life. The way this is done is through flashbacks and time jumps, a choice which some readers might find more appealing then others. Rooney shines a light on the most important episodes of Connell and Marianne's life, namely those where they by some happenstance stumble upon each other after a long time of not having seen each other.

If the novel emphasises one thing about its main characters it is that Connell and Marianne are both smart. They are also clumsy in their human interactions and closed off, making it even as a reader hard to know how they feel. As I don't want to consider this a shortcoming in the way Rooney writes her characters, I'd rather opt that this inaccessibility is in line with the way Marianne and Connell often live alongside each other, skins brushing in different moments in time, but always searching for each other's true feelings. Indeed, Connell and Marianne are normal people with all their wonderful mysteries and beautiful problems. It's up to the reader to decide if they love this being left out in the open or if they find it infuriatingly frustrating.

Since no-one can know the course of life of normal people living their normal lives, the ending leaves plenty of room for speculation. The course of Connell and Marianne's relationship, too, is not at all as definitive as you might think. These two people are both their best and worst person around one another, even if they finally seem to have concluded they're only themselves when they're together, I'm not convinced it's definitive their ending will be a happy or a bleak one. With life you just don't know. After all, the book shows two normal people who are like natural satellites orbiting around one another: they can't be together but they can't be apart either.

Connell and Marianne are examplary millennials: happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time. The novel tries hard to make the unpopular-popular Marianne and popular-unpopular Connell likeable, but in reality they become a fantasy of the generation they're supposed to represent. They are almost too artificial, the dialogues at times fall flat and feel too constrained. Though, perhaps one could argue that the dialogue is constrained because the characters themselves are constrained: by their hopes and fears and anxieties, by both feeling discontent and having lust for life.

Review 'Her Name is Mercie' by Chris Roy

Chris Roy’s Her Name is Mercie is a short story collection, the title of which refers to the titular character from the first of five stories. The first story, also titled Her Name is Mercie, occupies the majority of this work and could have existed well on its own apart from the rest. With the story containing only some minor unexpected twists and turns, what you can expect mostly is a thrilling chase that centralises action over plot and character development. With that purpose in mind, the story works splendidly: it keeps you on the edge of your seat, as if you’re watching a police chase on live television, and demands to be read in one sitting.

Apart from Her Name is Mercie, I could imagine the four short stories being told individually around a camp fire, flashlight under your chin. Whereas Libby’s Hands is a gruesome, disorientating horror tale, the concluding story Marsh Madness is a suspenseful thriller in which the tension cuts to the bone. Then there’s Hunger, a puzzling delirium that makes you question reality altogether.

The second story, Re-Pete, is a thriller which explores violence as part of human nature in correlation with the notion of a child’s innocence, in this case that of the young Pete. It centralises OCD, a result of Pete witnessing his father’s untimely death from up close, as the cause of his actions and thoughts. The title Re-Pete is a clever play on words that hints at Pete not stopping after a single, isolated act of revenge. The way Pete’s OCD manifests itself is chilling and leaves you wonder where, and mostly with who, he will stop.

In opposition to Her Name is Mercie, the four short stories are more atmospheric: not action but suspense is their driving force. Evoking feelings of tension and unease within the reader are central in conveying these stories. Some of this is achieved by actually revealing very little. Roy doesn’t overexplain his short stories but, instead, leaves a great deal to the reader’s imagination. Though this might be off-putting for readers who like well-rounded, closed stories, I would argue that the lack of closure in these stories is why they work so well: our imagination can be a scary instrument and oftentimes the things we imagine in our minds more successfully terrorise us than things written and explained on paper.

Readers might find themselves searching for the connecting factor between this collection of stories. For me, it’s that they’re all disquieting in their own way. Whereas Her Name is Mercie compares to an adrenaline rush, the short stories more effectively achieve a sense of unsettling tension in which the unknown, the unfamiliar, the unrecognisable, those things that we can’t wrap our minds around, have the potential to truly fright and haunt to the core.

Review 'Return to Hiroshima' by Bob van Laerhoven

Reading Return to Hiroshima was like staring into an abyss and deciding whether or not to follow the obvious threat all the way down. It’s a sinister work of fiction that should come with a heap of trigger warnings as it doesn’t shun depictions of troubled youth, death, destruction, and (sexual) violence. Van Laerhoven’s book shows what happens when someone starts unpacking unspeakable trauma.

The novel plays around with reality a lot, and deception and hidden truths are at the centre of Van Laerhoven’s storytelling. Return to Hiroshima demands from the reader to stay alert as the story switches between perspectives and characters rapidly. It takes some getting used to the book’s structure, which initially feels disjointed and might leave you spinning. On the other hand, the benefit of it is that each chapter is filled with questions that beg for immediate answers and that practically every chapter ends with a cliff-hanger. Van Laerhoven drops crumbs in each chapter for readers to greedily feed on, despite their awful aftertaste, and in the end impressively strings together the narratives of his characters. In this, Return to Hiroshima is ruthless like Rokurobei: it lures you into the dark alleys of Hiroshima and, too compelled, it becomes impossible to avert your eyes from the pages that contain so much horror and darkness.

Return to Hiroshima is a wild mix of historical fiction, noir and thriller that attempts to both expose the complex nature of individual human beings as well as a nation on the brink of collapse. This is Japan crushed by economic crisis, a society terrorised by underworld figures, a country traumatised by their defeat in war. The darkest and largest of shadows that looms over the pages, though, is cast by Little Boy: one of the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. All in all, Return to Hiroshima painfully reflects the dark nature of humankind in general. Perhaps it’s not surprising that in a world where people willingly commit atrocious acts of total destruction demons like Rokurobei can thrive.

Is there then no way to climb out of this abyss? There might be. The paper cranes left by children at the Peace Monument remind us that the future of and hope for a more bearable world lies in the hands of the young – a hopeful message needed in a tale that’s otherwise too dark, and too real, to handle.