Log 2

 

    Hey beautiful people, it's Felix. I want to share with you my reflection on the book and a little bit of my life story I found interesting that can relate to the story quite much. Here we go!     

    When I was choosing which book I should read at the beginning, I feel puzzled and uncertain. Because I thought of myself as a reader but if I'm going to make blog posts for the reflection of the whole book, I don’t really know how to impress the audience and will my point of view can influence anyone in any ways. But I quickly came to my conclusion that if the book touched me so hard, my words won’t affect how impressive the book actually is, because when the audience is going through my article, they will be moved by the plot through the introduction. So, this time, I think of myself as a “Deliver”, to deliver the lovely novel I came across by accident to those who had insecurities about their social lives and relationship problems.

 

Last Friday, I took a break from my part-time job and went shopping, I decided to go to a bookstore to do a little research about my reading material. I found this book, “Normal People”, on the last row of the bookshelf and was curious about the title. So I quickly go through the back of the book and decided, THIS IS THE BOOK. The story was about the relationship between the cool and popular boy and a lonely, socially anxious girl. The chemistry between them make them a good couple since they can be seen as very different people by others, but they just can’t help but feeling mutual fascination.

 

After reading several chapters of the book, I felt like the characters are the combination of my personality. Back in high school, not to brag, but my friends told me that I was one of the popular kids in school because I transferred from an art school. And the reason why this happened is because I wore my uniform from the last school to attend the morning assembly and walking around the school in those for a whole week because I didn’t get the uniform on time. And it just made me famous, but I didn’t notice. But to me, I know I am an introvert and to some extent, I feel like I have social anxiety, because whenever I’m in a place with strangers, I just can’t stop shaking and wanting to leave, it makes me look like a weirdo and no one will even talk to me because I don’t know how to reply to them. The worst part is, whenever I have eye contact with strangers, I feel like they are judging me from head to toe, and it make me scared worse. So when Connell and Marianne are trying to hide their friendship at school, and talk about their self-conflict of the situation, I was so immersed.

 

Connell, the cool kid, doesn’t want to let others know that he had a strong bond with Marianne because she is the weirdo of the school, and if they know about this, those people will begin to laugh at him and her about this which will lead to them being very awkward. But on the other hand, he think that he is protecting Marianne from being the materials of gossiping because he knows that she isn’t weird she is just special and have interesting views on things, also, she will definitely feel more comfortable not being under the spotlight. Marianne, the loner, thinks the same, she knows she was hated by their classmates and just being unbothered about the comments they made about her. But she is very sensitive, she can sense the awkwardness of every situation by doing little observation and it’s how she’s special. It’s very touching that they find a balance of how to work out their relationship and make themselves very comfortable in any situation. I’m a sensitive person like Marianne so I can guess why she was acting like that, we both seem to look unbothered by others’ comments but at the same time are scared to be judged or even looked at. That’s why I’m touched to see Connell was low key protecting Marianne from those hate comments. Connell told Marianne the reason why he didn’t want to let others know about their friendship was because he didn’t want to be ashamed, but I know deep inside of him that he just refuse to declare that he was trying to protect her and didn’t found out she was special for him.

 

At the end of the chapter I have read, some chemistry is showing up between the two characters, and it’s becoming quite cheesy. I’m looking forward to seeing how their relationship will be exposed and what’s their reaction. And since I’ve taken myself into the character very much, I want to know if Marianne will react the same as I am, if she doesn’t, I will take that as a lesson and reflect that with myself if I’m falling in the similar situation like that.