After blowing through “Normal People” and adoring it, I knew I needed to get my hands on Sally Rooney’s first novel, “Conversations with Friends,” a story about strong-minded college students Frances and Bobbi intertwining lives with older couple Nick and Melissa. Rooney’s incredible capability to turn the ordinary into a delicious, indulgent read made this book just as incredible as “Normal People.”
Told from Frances’ point of view, “Conversations with Friends” centers around her relationships with her best friend (and ex-lover) Bobbi, her parents, her body, and her newfound intimate relationship with Melissa’s husband, Nick. What comes are highs and lows of Frances’ life that readers get to experience closely, despite the fact that Frances is not particularly warm or open, or likeable, for that matter. Her ailments are what make her human, and even relatable.
Rooney’s writing is free-flowing, as this book utilizes a similar technique to “Normal People” in foregoing quotations and intermixing dialogue with prose. The language is intimate this way, and readers feel as though they are right in the thick of the plot with the characters. The characters themselves are all particularly unlikeable, with perhaps Frances being the most so, but this spins around typical stereotypes of fiction where readers are always on the side of their protagonist or the main character is a hero. In this story, Frances is incredibly flawed in her handling of life and relationships, and she is the first to tell us so. The ups and downs she experiences are what make the novel so captivating.
The story constantly picks up speed, as if it is bounding down a hill, and ultimately crashes at the end rather than plateauing like typical novels. Tropes are deconstructed, and though characters like Nick and Melissa lack real depth, it's because we are viewing them through Frances’ lens, yet we still have to trust her as our narrator. I loved the complications of character this novel brought, and of course, I also adore Rooney’s descriptive language and ease of plot. I would recommend this read just as much as “Normal People,” if that novel suited you, and give this book a 4.5/5.
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