Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Product details
Web ID: 7123287Not Recommended: Annoying Characters & Unclear End
TW: Self harm, suicidal thoughts, mildly graphic sexual scenes, abuse I won’t go over precise details of all the characters, as I want to leave this review for someone interested in reading. This was a quick read for me and the style was unlike anything I have ever read. I thought it was paced well enough that all the details added up so the reader could understand what was happening, even with the lack of quotation marks and the first person point of view. As for the characters, they were all extremely unlikable, frustrating, and narcissistic. Were they complex? Yes. Are they somewhat morally grey? Yes. But, these two main characters, both English/Writing-based college students, consider themselves intellectuals (they are well versed in politics and philosophy) but they handle themselves in such a self-centered manner than it is annoying to read some to all of their dialogue. The relationships in the story are complex, but in no way are they admirable. There are odd, borderline repulsive, intimacy dynamics between the majority of the characters that stems into unhealthy relationships across the board. Finally, the ending of the novel ruined my overall experience due to the sheer amount of loose ends involving all of the characters, although I could see it as the authors way of leaving it up to interpretation. I rated it based on it being a quick read that was still easy to follow. I enjoyed learning about the characters, all of their quirks, and how mental health disorders display themselves differently.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Avoid the book
Conversations with Friends (Hardcover) by Sally Rooney Frances is a 21 y/o bisexual college student and our narrator. Bobbi is also a poet, a lesbian, and very beautiful. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where they live their separate ways, but remain very close. A 37 y/o journalist named Melissa spots their potential. She is a photographer and a Marxist. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, 32 y/o Nick. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil - and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy-made flesh. The two couples start doing everything together. Bobbi is very attracted to Melissa, while Frances is attracted to Nick. However amusing Frances and Nick's flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expected. They soon start an affair. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment. This book is a mess. I can't believe it was ever published. The characters are very superficial and not interesting at all. I never cared for any of them. The non-existent plot is about conversations between all four of the characters. It is trivial and extremely boring. I had to skip lines to finish the book, which came full circle. The grammar is hideous. No quotation marks are used for dialogue. Written from France's first-person point of view, it took me two chapters to realize who was doing the narration. I strongly recommend you stay away from this book. PS - I would have rated 1/2 star if allowed.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Not my favorite of hers
Truly, an unexpected surprise. Most books rise to climax, and then one situation throws you off track and leads to a closure of some sort. This book, on the other hand, was spiraling up and down, over and over again. You agree “oh, this must be it and how it ends” but then out of nowhere, the path breaks off into a brand new one. Just when you think there’s nothing more to add on, Sally Rooney throws in a random fork in the road and changes it up, again. It lacked a few stars to me though only due to the main character seeming familiar (in comparison with the main character from her book “Normal People”). It was almost like the two were too alike and I had already met a character in similarity. Just my opinion!
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Pseudo intellectuals act like children
The characters in this book are self-centered, naive, narcissistic millennials, who don't enjoy anything but talking about themselves and their vast "knowledge" of all things intellectual. The main character, Frances, unfortunately discovers she has a gynecological condition that is very painful. She goes on and on about everything that happens to her during this ordeal, and she often refuse to go to the hospital when she needs to. Her best friend, Bobbie, is extremely beautiful and self-centered. Frances has an affair with an older man, NIck. She is 21, and he is 32. He is passive to the nth degree. I have no idea what the attraction between these two is, but it was not passionate or romantic. Nick's wife, 37, is clueless about the fling while Nick cheats on her in the same vacation home his wife is also vacationing in. Sigh, millennials. When will you learn that you are not the only generation to have suffered? I liked the last few pages, in which the author's writing ability really shone through.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Loved it
One of the best books I’ve read.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
An intense book told by Frances about an affair
Sally Rooney has been on my radar after watching Normal People on the TV, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Actually, enjoyed is probably not the right word as that implies fun and lightness, but as with Conversations with Friends, her stories are not really what I would call easy: they are close examinations of the intricacies and complexities of relationships and the people involved in them and I have to say that she depicts these very well. Frances is a student, who, along with her friend, Bobbi meets Melissa and Nick. Melissa is originally interested in doing a feature on the girls and over time, they become friends who meet up and socialise together. Nick is an actor, handsome and desirable and Frances is drawn to him as Bobbi is to Melissa. The novel focuses on Frances' and Nick's relationship as told from Frances' perspective. Frances is seen as someone very distant; an observer of people who perhaps is slightly scornful of others. There is a sense that people are intimidated by her and don't like her very much. However, she is quite a vulnerable individual who needs to feel in control and can do things to hurt herself when she can feel it slipping away. She has a difficult relationship with her father and there are parallels between Frances' behaviour and his of which perhaps she is subconsciously aware and this is part of her problem. Frances' and Nick's affair is not a passionate thing, certainly not in the bodice-ripping romantic way: they are intimate and Frances claims to love him but her descriptions of their love-making are detached and factual almost. I'm not sure if this is Rooney's writing style or if this is Frances' view of them, a way of Rooney depicting Frances' difficulty with getting emotionally involved. I wonder if this novel is less about the affair and more about Frances coming to terms with who she is and how she treats people and how others view her; a complex coming-of-age story and character study more than a tale of love. Whatever the book sets out to present, it has great character development and I felt like I was reading something literary, thoughtful and quite deep, rather than popular fiction. A good read but if I have a gripe, it is that it ended a bit abruptly; I had questions beyond the book which was, is, frustrating.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Scandalous and fun
I loved this one by Sally Rooney! It was just the read I needed to kick a slump. Two friends toeing the line of relationships with each other and an older couple they meet in the literary world was truly addictive. We have exes, lovers, affairs, and at its core a story of friendship. This one was hard to put down and I can't wait to see the TV adaptation!
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com