Conversations with Friends: A Novel Kindle Edition

This book is Sally Rooneys Magnum Opus.So much fire on each page, I could feel her hand burning as she wrote. Its impossible to resist gobbling the book up in just a few days. Layered characters, interesting plot. I found myself envying the entire thing wishing I had written it myself.

Although I guess this is her first book, it it’s the third one I have read by Sally Rooney. The vibe is like all the others I but I found these characters and relationships less relatable than her other books I have read. I also always fell unsure whether I liked a Sally Rooney book or not when I finish, probably because they are pretty emotionally draining. I waited a few days to rate and review this one. Did not enjoy as much as Normal People or Beautiful World Where Are you but I thought the characters and plot were complex in a good way and it made me feel something so there’s that.

I first fell in love with Sally Rooney’s style in her novel, Normal People, and have since returned to her previous work. As this is her first book, it is true to her style but the story is not as strong as that in Normal People but it does keep you captivated and is still a lovely quick read. Having now read all 3 of her novels I would rank them 1- Normal People, 2- Conversation with friends 3- Beautiful world, where are youI also watched the Hulu series based on this novel and have to say I preferred the book. Mr Taylor Swift is quite wonderful as Nick Conway but I did not love the casting/direction otherwise - definitely glad I read the novel first and knew of Frances’ internal monologue/feelings before watching the series.

Sally Rooney brings “torn between two lovers” to a new level. The first person narrator, Frances, who identifies as bisexual, is in love with Bobbi, her female ex-lover and Nick the husband of Melissa. Nick and Melissa are Bobbi’s friends, and Frances is caught in a triangulation relationship with Melissa and Bobbi when she begins having an affair with Nick.Bobbi and Frances are college students; Melissa and Nick are in their thirties. There are age and economic differences among the four protagonists. There are questions about the sanctity and value of marriage. Discussions about monogamy and other questionable values systems are commonplace when Sally Rooney creates millennial characters. Conversations with Friends is the first of Sally Rooney’s books, and after reading the other two, I decided to go back and read this one in anticipation of the new Hulu adaptation. It is my least favorite of her books because of its rambling conversations and thin plot. However, Rooney appeals to millennials and certainly captures their disenfranchisement, political rants, economic anxiety, and existential dread and self-hate.I cannot summarize the viewpoints as well as these quotes from the novel:Bobbi says, “...monogamy was based on a commitment model, which served the needs of men in patrilineal societies by allowing them to pass property to their genetic offspring, traditionally facilitated by sexual entitlement to a wife. Nonmonogamy could be based on an alternative model completely, Bobbi said. Something more like spontaneous consent.” (p. 241). Kindle Edition.The discussion of love, the human spirit, and mental health intermingle with capitalism.“if you look at love as something other than an interpersonal phenomenon and try to understand it as a social value system… it’s both antithetical to capitalism, in that it challenges the axiom of selfishness which dictates the whole logic of inequality and yet also it’s subservient and facilitatory i.e. mothers selflessly raising children without any profit motive.” (p. 174). Kindle Edition.“To love someone under capitalism you have to love everyone. Is that theory or just theology?” (p.286) Kindle Edition“...depression is a humane response to the conditions of late capitalism.” (p. 119). Kindle Edition.

Torturous romance and friendship…. in the best way. The ending wasn’t quite my cup of tea but still worth reading.

I enjoyed the Hulu Mini-series and the book is even better. It’s a story of four broken, far from perfect, people. And it’s told in a captivating way.

such a good book

Set in Ireland, CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS is about two friends, Frances and Bobbi, who develop a relationship with a privileged married couple. Frances is attracted to the husband, Nick, and that plot line is the main focus of the novel. I wasn’t sure what to think about this book for the first few chapters. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and the characters seemed to chatter rather than say anything meaningful. But at some point, it caught my interest, and by the end of the book I discovered I liked it a lot.I understand the negative reviewers who describe this book as a lot of whining by self-centered 20 year olds. It took me awhile to warm up to the characters, and even then, I was only really interested in Frances and Nick and their vulnerabilities. The narrative reads less like a plot-driven novel and more like an introspective of Frances. I think that’s the point. Yes, she is immature and insecure, and she makes a lot of selfish choices. In the end, I’m not sure she even regrets those choices. But when I looked at her life through the lens of her relationship with her alcoholic father and enabling mother, and what it means to be an adult child of an alcoholic, the book came together for me. Nick’s issues with depression and his willingness to please adds another layer that explains a lot about their relationship.Reviewers also pointed out the often overly simplistic sentence structure. It worked for me because the book was told by Frances and the staccato-like syntax reflected the rhythm of her thought after thought after thought. It gave me more insight into her insecurities and confusion as she grapples with who she is and what actually makes her happy. At other times, when for a moment we were more in the setting than in Frances’s head, the writing is stop-in-your-tracks gorgeous. I think the combination of writing style is a testament to Rooney’s gift for language.This is not a book for everyone, which accounts for the love-it or hate-it reviews, but I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more by this author.

This book comes festooned with awards and laudatory reviews, blurbs and hype and Rooney herself is acclaimed as the Next Big Thing, one of the great authors of the 21st Century.The mind boggles, the currency cheapens, and all faith in pundits and the judgement of Zadie Smith goes right down the pan.This is a truly, truly, dreadful book, almost fascinatingly so. Frances, supposedly "cool headed and observant", falls in love with an older, married man. It goes badly. Surprised? She apparently is. "I can't remember if I thought about this at the beginning. How it was doomed to end unhappily" is a line from about halfway through. Apart from the cringe-worthy triteness, it also reveals the lead character to be stunningly obtuse, and far from the "observant" person the blurb on the cover would have us believe. All the characters - Frances, her best friend/lover Bobbi, the journalist Melissa and the husband/lover Nick - are so flatly written they might as well be cardboard cut-outs, their dialogue equally flat and lifeless and dull, to the point that it became impossible to work out who's talking. It could be anybody, about anybody, about anything.And then there's the prose itself -- it's....it's hideous, it really is. About halfway through I started making notes in the margins, underlining the worst passages -- something an editor is supposed to do. In no particular order: "His heart continued to beat like an excited or miserable clock" It...it what?? "Valerie spoke with a moneyed British accent, too rich to be comical". How does THAT work? "I perceived that my face and hair were becoming wet, too wet to feel normal"; "She looked clean and dry like a model from a catalogue. My hair was leaking water into my face". Leaking? "I laughed to myself, although there was no one there to see me". That's kind of what it means, right? "He never touched me like that usually. But he was looking at me, so I guess he must have known who I was". Wait, this woman's supposed to be "observant", right? And my favourite: "He touched me cautiously like a deer touches things with its face". Oh god, make it stop.Seriously, this is supposed to be award-worthy? A tired story, hitched to some staggeringly dreadful prose which reveals nothing of the workings of the human heart, nothing of the soul, nothing of passion. Shame on the critics who have passed this off as something worthy, shame on every one of the publications whose glowing quotes litter the front pages of this travesty. I'm tempted to read Rooney's "Normal People" to see if it's as hysterically bad or if, by some miracle, she improved. If I come across a copy for less than a pound, I might just, but I'm not paying much more for this kind of nonsense.

This book is in the running for the worst book I have read so far this year. I kept on reading in the hope that something would happen or that one of the characters would endear themselves to be but I shouldn't have bothered. This book is banal and the characters are irritating and impossible to bond with on any level. The writing is clumpy and oddly bland, there is no descriptions of Ireland or France that invoke any connections with those places. This is one of those books that I wonder how on earth she got a publishing deal when there are so many better authors self publishing amazing works because they can't get published and this drivel can. I just don't get it.

I don't even know where to start with this review. This book was so bad it actually makes me feel angry that I finished it and wasted my time. I kept wanting to give it another chance but the while thing just frustrated me.The characters in this book aren't just badly written, I hated them all and they learned nothing from their experiences, they just repeated their loathing behaviour and terrible life decisions over and over again. The main character is so full of self loathing and yet completely self centred and so over privileged but treats herself like the endless victim of every situation.I have no doubt that sally rooney can write, but these characters make me want to punch a wall.The story goes nowhere and seems like it begins when it ends. I also didn't enjoy the conversation style without quote marks, it just made it unnecessarily difficult to distinguish between what characters were saying and what they were thinking.Sorry I wasted my time reading it and I have no clue why it's so highly critically acclaimed.

In my student days, I knew more than one Frances, cooler than everyone else, more intelligent, and slightly (or often very) intimidating. Then, years later you find out they were actually more messed up than everyone else.Conversations with Friends is the story of four people and the shifting relationships between them. Frances and Bobbi are students in Dublin. Ex-lovers, they remain close friends and work the literary circuit as performance poets. Frances is introverted, a talented writer, while Bobbi is an extrovert, the more gifted performer. Melissa is a photographer who wants to profile the two young women. She invites them to a party at her home, where they meet her husband, Nick, completing the central quartet. Bobbi fancies Melissa, Frances is drawn to Nick.As the story progresses, it shifts between Dublin and a holiday in France. Through the novel, each goes through ups and downs and the relationships between them are equally volatile. We also learn about their troubled pasts and present, especially Nick and Frances.In a word, I thought it was terrific, absolutely terrific. I've read a number of more critical reviews and while I can appreciate a number (but not all) of the negative comments, I still think the book is terrific.Is this a book in which none of the characters is pleasant? I would have to disagree with that. Frances is outwardly cold, snarky and aloof. But she is also insecure, damaged and sensitive. She might be difficult , but she isn't unlovable. There is one devastating scene near the end of the book where she is confronted by the difference between her own self image and the impression another character has of her.It is true that this isn't a plot heavy book, but that isn't the point. This is primarily a book about relationships, and those relationships are superbly drawn. As the portrayal of friendship between two young women, that between Frances and Bobbi feels completely genuine and realistic. The sparks which fly between Nick and Frances generated by something between love and hate are thrilling.The writing style is flat, functional, almost child like at times. Again, as the voice of this disengaged, alienated young woman that came across as completely authentic.So, it a nutshell, this is a stunningly humane work about damaged, ambiguous, very human people.

There were moments in this book I just wanted it to take off. You spend a lot of time (most of the book) thinking come on get good, get good and the only reason you really stick with it is because of her abilities as a a writer. You can tell Sally Rooney's a fabulous writer, there is some gorgeous prose but it's so difficult to stick with because you just never ever warm to the characters and it just meanders aimlessly at times. I literally threw the book on the bed in frustration having finished the final paragraph. I do think she'll write a wonderful book one day but unfortunately it's not this one.