They made me feel it. The people in this book. Lack of priority in the best years of youth. Naivety so intense it hurts to look at it.

Connell shows us the evil that can come from conforming to norms which do not even exist. Being a prisoner of your theoretical anxiety-world. Conforming as the outsider actually does happen to real people too. And it makes one wonder how painful life can be made for no good reason.

Marianne was alone and lonely. Then less alone but even more lonely.

It’s hard to open up. Even harder is accepting that sometimes even the theoretically perfect connection isn’t enough to make a relationship function.

Things change. People change even more.

I hardly recognised that I was reading. The text’s fluidity was excellent.