A realistic novel about young adults growinginto maturity

For better or worse, Sally Rooney's new novel, Normal People, maintains a steady course and despite some dramatic outbursts, particularly toward the end, remains a cool and balanced novel, avoiding all or most opportunities for violence, melodrama, and histrionics. For example, toward the end of the novel Marianne's brother, Alan, a minor but menacing figure throughout the narrative, gets in a tiff w/ her for no obvious reason - other than that he's mentally unbalanced - and hurls a beer bottle at her head (she ducks) and later slams a door into her face and breaks her nose. She summons her boyfriend, Connell, to the house and he enter, asks her to leave and then ... tells Alan that if he ever harms her again he'll kill him. Fine - though I expected more than that! Similarly, the funeral of a young suicide, the unknown parentage of Connell, the bitter breakup of Marianne and Alan,and other examples abound - all are underplayed, deliberately. That said, props to Rooney for maintaining her balance throughout; though this is a novel that simmers rather than boils over, on the plus side most readers will find the characters to be true-to-life depictions of young adults growing into a maturity, with particular honesty about sexual exploration. By the end, Marianne recognizes that she is an "ordinary person," having gone through 2 phases: the lonesome and socially outcast teenager to the dramatic, much revered and feared intellectual who constantly chooses the wrong boyfriends, to "just" an intelligent and attractive young woman making her way in the world.The conclusion seems - deliberately? is there a sequel in the works? - open-ended as M and C embark on a new stage in their relationship and in their lives. It's neither a traditional comic conclusion (inclusion in society) nor an "American" conclusion (heading off for the territories though there's a touch of this); rather, perhaps it's an "Irish" conclusion: open, and epiphanic. All told it's a credible and appealing novel in which the narrator is virtually invisible and the characters do all the work, dissecting every nuance of their feelings, longings, and regrets through much discussion and analysis.