Normal People is my favourite book and I have thought about it every day since reading it in 2018. Which is why it’s surprising I didn’t find out about the TV adaptation until a week before it dropped.

In a way, I’m glad, because it meant that I didn’t have to spend months on end desperately anticipating its release, worrying whether or not it would be shit and I would hate it.

Lucky for me, it absolutely isn’t shit. In fact, it’s one of the best - if not the actual best - adaptation of a book I’ve ever seen. The dialogue basically matched the book word for word (thanks to Sally Rooney herself being on the writing team) and the two directors (Lenny Abrahamson of Room and Hettie McDonald of Howard’s End) handling the awkward, intense, desperate intimacy so well.

Books and TV are two very different mediums - what works on the page doesn’t always translate well on screen, and vice versa. That’s why it can be nerve wracking as a fan of a book to find out that the stories and characters you’ve loved and carried with you are going to come alive on screen. But the whole production team really pulled it out of the bag, capturing the essence of this book to the very last minute detail. I thought the way it was shot - the colours, the shallow focus, the extreme close ups - was phenomenal, and the soundtrack throughout hit the nail on the head.

While there were a couple of characters and story arcs that I felt needed a bit more fleshing out, in contrast, there were a handful of moments that I thought actually worked much better visually than it did written down. When you can no longer rely on the characters narrating their every thought - giving the reader an explaination for the things they do or how they feel - it suddenly becomes much more nuanced and far more rewarding.

Daisy Edgar-Jones was excellent as Marianne, and almost picture-perfect to how I saw her in my head. In the book, Marianne has this aloofness about her, which is really just a defence against the world and how it treats her. And while you understand why Marianne acts the ways she does, in the book, her words and her actions can come across quite abrasive and and unfeeling; you’re rooting for her, but there’s a wall there. Daisy Edgar-Jones does really well to play this abrasiveness, but she adds so much warmth to Marianne, as well. She has this amazing ability to channel Marianne’s complexity at the drop of a hat, and reminding us that behind this tough exterior is just a girl trying to navigate a world full of people who don’t care about her.

While I think I’ll have trouble seeing her as anyone other than Marianne Sheridan, Daisy Edgar-Jones is going to be a big name in years to come, that’s for sure. Her acting is so subtle, it’s like she’s not even trying - but in the best way. While I didn’t think her story (particularly in regards to her family) wasn’t handled as well as it was in the book (in my opinion), Edgar-Jones absolutely nailed every scene she was in, down to the very last gaze and breath. Both lead actors are the masters of subtlety, and their chemistry and intimacy is a really testimony to their skills. In many ways, this didn’t feel like a TV show; it felt very voyeuristic, like I was peeping into the very real lives of these two people.

Both lead actors were incredible, but Paul Mescal really blew me away and made me love Connell even more. I thought Connell’s journey was so visceral and his story was handled perfectly, especialy the recurring themes of mental health and loneliness. Plus, it’s a real credit to Mescal that even when I was frustrated at Connell, I still sympathised with him and wanted to hug him.

It’s really clear in both the book and TV series that Connell has serious anxiety issues. He’s so wrapped up in toxic masculinity, what people think of him, and the culture of Irish Catholic guilt, and you can see it really consume him. As you watch Paul Mescal as Connell, you can understand why he’s so uncommunicative and does hurtful things to Marianne. It obviously doesn’t excuse his behaviour, but it makes for a really nuanced character - who is, at their core, not a bad person - and Mescal does a fantastic job of making this complicated character come to life.

Connell is a very ‘traditional’ man in many ways, but he really does stand out amongst his contemporaries. He’s very smart, although not outwardly vocal about it, and he’s very caring and emotional, even though, again, he doesn’t always express it. Paul Mescal navigates playing a confused young man coming to grips with who he is with such conviction, that you cry whenever he cries.

There’s so much to love about this beautifully handled book-to-TV adaption, but a great addition that is not so explicit in the book, is when Connell and Marianne first sleep together. It’s Marianne’s first time, and Connell makes it absolutely clear to her that she can stop at any point - if it hurts, if she just doesn’t want to anymore - and it’s fine and won’t be awkward. He gives her agency, and he gives himself agency, too. For once he’s not just going along with something, he’s being deliberate in his care for Marianne, which makes it all the more hurtful and confusing when he treats her insensitively later on.

There is a lot of sex in both the book and the show, but it’s not gratuitous. They don’t throw it in just for the sake of seeing some boobs and willies - although I will say, I did appreciate the equal opportunity nudity throughout. But the sex scenes in a lot of ways drove the story forward and showed us how the characters were feeling. The extreme close ups forces the viewer to be present in that moment of the story. And it’s not a polished, Hollywood version of sex: it’s fumbling, it’s awkward, but also intense, passionate, and sometimes funny. And as a weird aside, I kind of liked how the actors looked red and sweaty and flustered afterwards, and how the show runners put so much emphasis in the post-coital intimacy that Connell and Marianne share.

I didn’t think could hold this story and these characters any more closely to my heart, but as I spent 12 episodes over six hours with them, I grew to love them even more intensely than I did before. I felt like I was experiencing everything first-hand, and everything felt fresh and impacted me just as much as when I first read it.

Whether or not you’ve read the book (although I think you should absolutely read the book too), I would recommend this series to absolutely everyone. It’s a modern love story told like no other, and I think everyone can take something from it or see themselves in the characters. I think everything was handled so perfectly, even from how technology is used. Connell and Marianne live in a world where smartphones and social media exist, but it’s not obnoxiously rubbed in your face. I sometimes feel including modern technology like this can make a film, book or TV show look dated, but Normal People still feels timeless even with the inclusion of these modern vices.

I’m going to stop it here, because I could easily write a 12,000-word thesis on how much I love Normal People, but I don’t think that would be fun for anyone other than me! However, I would love to hear your thoughts if you’ve watched it, and if you’ve picked up on anything I’ve missed. Hit me up in the comments or on all social media @whimsicella