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Do all of her books feature characters who can't talk to each other in any effective way? Yes but in this one it seems to make so much more sense. Who is ever really good at talking to their family.
I particularly loved Ivan as a narrator and he felt different from those in her previous books. I would not recommend this as someone's first Sally Rooney as she is really exploring her style here. Think pages long paragraphs. But it worked so well.
I will read this again and again. And instant favourite.
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent
Moderate: Drug use, Violence, Alcohol
"The demands of other people do not dissolve; they only multiply. More and more complex, more difficult. Which is another way, she thinks, of saying: more life, more and more of life."
Graphic: Chronic illness, Grief, Death of parent
Moderate: Cancer, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness
Minor: Drug use, Misogyny, Vomit, Medical content, Alcohol, Classism
Graphic: Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol
Graphic: Drug use, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Grief
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Drug use, Grief, Death of parent
Moderate: Toxic relationship
Minor: Cancer, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Death of parent
Moderate: Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Alcohol
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Alcohol
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent
Moderate: Chronic illness, Drug use, Alcohol
The characters were flawed and complex, although the women almost too good in comparison to the male characters. I appreciated how the book used staccato sentence fragments to give a sense of the scattered trains of thought of the main characters. It felt like you were basically inside their head with all the associated complexity and indecision. It didn’t try to make things easy or necessarily wrap things up with a nice bow even though the ending was slightly - perhaps not happier, but gentler - than I expected.
Overall I liked and appreciated this work but I think I would be a bit nonplussed by it if I hadn’t read any of her other books, so I’d start with something like Normal People if I was new to Sally Rooney.
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Chronic illness, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol
Minor: Violence