Why everyone is talking about 'Normal People' The show based on Sally Rooney's novel tells a troubled love story

For a few weeks now, on social media, there has been one trend topic: Normal People, the event-series on Hulu (in collaboration with BBC Three) from the homonymous novel by Sally Rooney. Released on the platform on April 26, 2020, in the United Kingdom, then on April 29, 2020, in the United States, the series immediately became a must-watch: everybody loves it and all the critics are describing it as simply "perfect". With 12 stirring half-hour episodes, Normal People is the epic journey of tormented love, one of those loves that makes you cry in the middle of the street and scream out loud the name of the special person you lost (or, in Pheobe's words from Friends, your "lobster"). 

Sally Rooney, born in 1991, has been defined "the author of Millennials" (and she was defined by her editor as “the Salinger of the Snapchat generation”). Normal People (2018) is her second novel and it was published in Italy by Einaudi in 2019, with the title of Persone normali. For this transposition, BBC has gone for it: it called back Rooney herself to work at the script while opting for the direction of Lenny Abrahamson (Academy Award® nominated in 2015 for Room) and Hettie Macdonald, who has already been a director for many tv series as Doctor Who.

The biggest applause, though, goes to the two main actors: Daisy Edgar-Jones (a constrained version of Dakota Johnson) and Paul Mescal, both relatively at their debut. They are really good and the public immediately noticed it: only after a few weeks, they already have more dedicated accounts than Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, starting from the Instagram page about Connell's (Paul Mescal) silver chain. 

It is hard to say if Normal People deserves all the attention that it's getting. There is to admit, though, that is really able to touch the right chords to move every Millennial. And maybe that is what it really makes Sally Rooney one of the best novelists of her generation: she knows how to play with the feelings of her public, and she also knows how to live them wanting more. Like it or not, Normal People makes you want to watch a second season. After all, this is already a great point in its favour.