OOF. I don't recall reading any other book that portrays a relationship as painfully bare and true as this one. Marianne and Conell fall into a twisted dance that involves assumptions and interpretations of themselves, of each other; a dance that goes on for years, shifts and evolves with their own personal struggles, mutates accordingly.

It is fascinating in a horrible way, like witnessing a car crash in slow motion, to see these two seemingly normal people (ooooh see what I did there) get into certain destructive patterns unknowingly yet loving each other. Thx Sally Rooney for giving the world this perspective on relationships, which indeed ends up being a common occurrence, and shakes us awake from our romantic notion of love - love is good, love is pure, love is sugar, spice and everything nice (Corinthians 13).

Love, and acting upon love in the form of a relationship, can be ugly and problematic and we gotta be careful, I suppose. Let's face it, being so intensely close to another human being is a gargantuan task, yet all our lives we are made to believe that it is such a normal occurrence, to be in a normal relationship, involving normal people.