Normal People, Sally Rooney (7/10) - no spoilers

Okay so I read this after having watched the TV adaptation -- and that definitely affected my reading. Having heard sooo much about this book from every book Tiktoker under the sun and its global popularity, I had pretty high expectations. Honestly? I didn't think it was that amazing. Rooney's writing style really frustrated me initially; she writes in the present tense with limited/changing omniscience, and I was a bit annoyed until I got used to it. I also just feel like she wasn't that amazing of a writer? Like I feel like with a really good writer, the book will add a lot more than any screenplay adaptation because you get the writer's voice, but I found that the novel didn't really add anything to what I had already seen in the show. I guess that's also because I think Rooney's brilliance might be in plot rather than actual sentences. It's still a good book that gives the romance genre a bit of depth lol, but I wouldn't have predicted that it would have garnered this huge of a following if I had read it a few years ago. I do like the exploration of BDSM/sex taboos in it, though.