Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

 

From Goodreads

A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. 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. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. 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.

Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."

My thoughts

I have previously read Normal People by this Author and quite enjoyed it. So when I saw that this one was available via BorrowBox through my local Library, I grabbed a copy of it to read.

I gave this a 4 stars or 8/10.

Telling the story of two young women known as Frances and Bobbi, who were once a couple when they were school friends. Told from the POV of Frances for the main, this is a slow burner of a story that isn't heavy on action and storyline as such, due to it being more character driven which is the way that Sally Rooney tends to relate her stories to us the reader. This is a story told more through dialogue and conversation.

As the two young women become friends with Melissa and Nick, who are a married couple.  The friendship becomes blurred around the edges and develops into an odd relationship, as that they become close to them  in many many ways. Frances finds things difficult to cope with for many reasons and struggles to come to terms with events in her life. Her age is a hindrance to her, as she hasn't the experience of life that is needed to cope with all that is thrown at her. 

It's a hard story to review in some ways. Yet, it's one that I enjoyed as I began to learn about the intricately woven web that kept the four main characters trapped and attached to one another. This is quite an emotional roller coaster of a story that Frances takes us on and one that I quite enjoyed taking with her. 

I feel that this would make quite a good reading group read, as in my opinion there's quite a lot that could be discussed.