This book revolves around the emotion and dialogue of two Irish characters, Marianne and Connell. Starting their story in January of 2011, they start with the typical stereotypes. Connell is popular, well-liked, shy, and easily embarrassed. Marianne is a loner, she has no friends and has no interest in creating any relationships with people her age.
In their final year of finishing school before university, there’s a relationship that forms between Connell and Marianne. Connell is a prevalent figure at their school and is terrified of anyone finding out about his relationship with Marianne. He goes into a frenzy of what his crappy friends would think and say about him. His past relationships were very public and out of line through gossip. Since Marianne was the ‘freak’ of the school he was even more paranoid that anyone would find out about them. Marianne on the other hand really couldn’t care less about anyone’s feelings besides Connell’s. She didn’t want to lose or upset him so she kept everything a secret. She was very aware that it was foolish and stupid. But she went along with it anyway.
Keeping their relationship a secret and under wraps, Connell and Marianne pretend to be strangers in their school. Passing by each other in the halls without making eye contact at the risk of Connell’s reputation.
Fast forwarding to university, everything seemed to switch. Marianne finally grew up and became more of the popular girl of the college. Connell slowly became more insecure and distant. They were still friends in a complicated way but valued each other nonetheless. Long story short, this book has insane emotional ups and downs, especially with the art of conversation. There’s a lot of power in what people say, especially when it comes down to how people feel.
This book was overall an emotional rollercoaster with many counts of miscommunication and held emotions. I feel as if this whole storyline tries to tell you that saying what you feel when you feel it is more valued than most actions. Not taking people for granted obviously and don’t be afraid to be unreasonable. In my opinion, I think this book should be called ‘The Delicacy of Conversation.’ regarding how private the words spoken between Marianne and Conell were.