In a note to this article, Pierini states that "For an extensive analysis of the novel, see my article “Sharing the Same Soil: Sally Rooney’s Normal People and the Coming-of-Age Romance.” Prospero: A Journal of Foreign Literatures and Cultures XXVI (2021): 141–166." Links to that article can be found here.
Given the ending, Rooney's novel seems to be more literary fiction than romance, but I've included this because it's
looking at how the narrative constructs love by incorporating elements borrowed from both the romance as well as the historical form of the bildungsroman. For this reason, the following note is divided into two parts. In the first part, Normal People will be briefly discussed in light of Pamela Regis’ eight essential narrative elements of the romance. The second part will discuss the novel’s adherence to the narrative and discursive conventions of the bildungsroman.
In a note to this article, Pierini states that "For an extensive analysis of the novel, see my article “Sharing the Same Soil: Sally Rooney’s Normal People and the Coming-of-Age Romance.” Prospero: A Journal of Foreign Literatures and Cultures XXVI (2021): 141–166." Links to that article can be found here.
Given the ending, Rooney's novel seems to be more literary fiction than romance, but I've included this because it's