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Normal People by Sally Rooney was a bestselling novel on both sides of the Atlantic, so it is no surprise that the show has now been made into a TV series.
The show, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell, is available to watch on Hulu in the U.S. and BBC iPlayer in the U.K.
Though the 12-part series is fairly faithful to Rooney's 2019 novel, in moving from page to screen a few big changes have been introduced.
The first big change fans will notice is in the series' structure. While the timeline of the Rooney novel jumps around, director Lenny Abrahamson decided to tell the story in chronological order in the TV version.
The Room and Frank director told BT: "We initially felt that we were going to follow Sally in that shifting timeline, but in the end the adaptation was more direct, we were in the present tense most of the time with a few occasions where we shifted around a bit."
This decision was made in order to make the growing relationship between Connell and Marianne even more central than it already is in the novel of Normal People. This decision also led to the introduction of a number of new moments as well as changes to some of the more minor characters.
Producer Emma Norton told Radio Times: "There are some changes towards the end of the series, there are certain things that may be slightly different to the book. Oftentimes we found it necessary to expand on moments in the book.
"In the early stages we thought, 'oh maybe we'll see more of the peripheral characters or we'll see more of their lives.' But actually all we always want to see is Marianne and Connell. You just want to be with them all the time."
This led to some changes to what we see of the pair's other relationships. The book, for example, features more of Connell's coupling with the prudish Helen (Aoife Hinds) and has a different break-up scene between Marianne and the BDSM-loving Lukas (Lancelot Ncube).
The series also gets rid of the scene where Marianne threatens to kill Miss Neary (Liz Fitzgibbon) after her non-consensual encounter with Connell.
While these scenes were shortened or cut from the TV show, other scenes were expanded. Most importantly, the scene after the Debs (an Irish version of the prom) where Connell leaves Marianne a message on her phone has an exciting addition for fans.
Whereas in the book, Marianne deletes the message and we never get to hear it, in the Hulu/BBC version viewers get to see what Connell left on her answerphone.
Normal People is streaming now on Hulu and BBC iPlayer.
