This new BBC book adaptation is getting people through lockdown

With our second month of lockdown life in full swing, it’s likely that your options for TV shows to binge watch are running low.

Luckily, the BBC has released something rather special and people are absolutely loving it.

Sally Rooney’s smash hit book Normal People has been made into a 12 part drama, bringing the Irish love story of teenagers Marianne and Connell to life.

The unlikely lovers meet at school, where Connell, played by Paul Mescal, is popular and good looking while Marianne, played by Daisy Edgar Jones, is a lonely misfit.

Despite not seeming like the perfect match, their whirlwind romance begins and viewers follow them through their rocky and heartbreaking journey.

With the entire series already available to watch on BBC iPlayer, plenty of viewers have taken to social media to swoon over the drama.

‘It was excellent!! Loved everything about it! Fantastically scripted, beautiful, honest performances and stunning directing,’ one wrote.

‘Inhaled all 12 episodes of #NormalPeople in one sitting, and ugh my heart HURTS,’ added another emotional fan.

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‘#NormalPeople is utterly beautiful, completely breath taking, vulnerable & honest. I've never watched something that has resonated with me so much. The locations, costume and acting, it was just perfection in a series which I never thought would live up to the book. Incredible,’ gushed a third.

Speaking on the process of adapting her novel for TV, Sally Rooney told The Irish Times, “As a writer of a novel, everything has to go on the page, whereas as the writer of a script, I had to learn: this is one building block in the storytelling, it is not the full story, and you have to trust that the director and the director of photography and the actors and everyone involved - lighting, hair and make-up - are all going to be adding tiles that will eventually build the mosaic of the story.”