I picked up this book for the first time while I was living in the same universe as Connell & Marianne; I was twenty years old, attending Trinity College Dublin, and feeling the pressures of attending university while still feeling like a child. Rooney's writing is honest and observes the world in a way only a genius could. This book is simply about what it is like to be a young person in Dublin in this century, and the complexity of that story means that it is one that will not be forgotten anytime soon.