The great thing about being a character in a Sally Rooney novel is that the person you are obsessed with is always obsessed with you, too. There is no unrequited love in Rooney’s books, only miscommunication that results from a lack of self-actualization. Under these conditions alone, the world of a Sally Rooney novel could seem like a utopia of sorts — aside from the organizing principle of political despair that pervades the characters’ consciousness.

In Normal People, Rooney’s second book that catapulted her to mainstream fame (much to her chagrin, as the bulk of her recent interviews suggest), Marianne and Connell have an on-again, off-again involvement beginning in high school. Even though they part ways at the end of the novel, they spend the majority of their young adulthood orbiting each other romantically, despite their very different class backgrounds. In Rooney’s debut, Conversations With Friends, although Frances and Nick are clearly involved in an ill-fated sexual entanglement, each is living rent-free in the other’s brain, alternating between reaching out and pushing the other away throughout their affair. And the friendship between Frances and Bobbi — arguably the more interesting relationship of that book, characterized as it is by rivalry, resentment, attraction, and unconditional love — is crucial for both characters.