Scan barcode
katievasquez's reviews
305 reviews
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
4.0
I gave Sally Rooney’s debut four stars, but in all honesty, I’m between a 3.5 and 4.
We follow two college students, Frances, our narrator, and her best friend/ex Bobbi; the two girls are almost complete opposites in every way except for the special friendship they have which seems completely unbreakable which was an aspect I enjoyed about this novel. The two girls write poetry and perform at poetry slams together. They meet an older married couple, Melissa, a photographer and writer who wants to do a piece on the two girls, and her husband the incredibly handsome actor Nick. Frances and Nick begin an affair on a group trip to France, and then the book seems to only be about the affair and keeping it a secret for about 100-150 pages that is where the 3ish star rating comes from.
The final half of the novel redeemed itself slightly by unraveling a few things for the characters and finally breaking the facades they had in the first half of the novel. I don’t want to say too much without giving things away. I will say that I enjoyed the last half because Frances comes back to reality through a health problem as well as her dwindling mental state, which we’ve seen slightly during the first half of the book. Things really begin to fall apart for her, issues with her alcoholic father pop up and things with Nick begin to shift. Everyone is incredibly selfish in this book, no one seems to have any redeemable quality, and I find that is becoming somewhat too common in contemporary novels of this particular style. I wanted the characters to develop a bit more; I was happy when our narrator Frances went through real personal issues and felt that is where real depth happened in the novel. Sally Rooney’s debut was enjoyable, I’m glad I read Conversations with Friends, and I do look forward to reading more from her in the future!
We follow two college students, Frances, our narrator, and her best friend/ex Bobbi; the two girls are almost complete opposites in every way except for the special friendship they have which seems completely unbreakable which was an aspect I enjoyed about this novel. The two girls write poetry and perform at poetry slams together. They meet an older married couple, Melissa, a photographer and writer who wants to do a piece on the two girls, and her husband the incredibly handsome actor Nick. Frances and Nick begin an affair on a group trip to France, and then the book seems to only be about the affair and keeping it a secret for about 100-150 pages that is where the 3ish star rating comes from.
The final half of the novel redeemed itself slightly by unraveling a few things for the characters and finally breaking the facades they had in the first half of the novel. I don’t want to say too much without giving things away. I will say that I enjoyed the last half because Frances comes back to reality through a health problem as well as her dwindling mental state, which we’ve seen slightly during the first half of the book. Things really begin to fall apart for her, issues with her alcoholic father pop up and things with Nick begin to shift. Everyone is incredibly selfish in this book, no one seems to have any redeemable quality, and I find that is becoming somewhat too common in contemporary novels of this particular style. I wanted the characters to develop a bit more; I was happy when our narrator Frances went through real personal issues and felt that is where real depth happened in the novel. Sally Rooney’s debut was enjoyable, I’m glad I read Conversations with Friends, and I do look forward to reading more from her in the future!