Scan barcode
A review by laurenisallbooked
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
3.0
"Melissa grinned. Don't underestimate the effect of youth and beauty, she said.
That sounds like a recipe for disastrous unhappiness, I said.
You're twenty-one, said Melissa. You should be disastrously unhappy."
That's it. That's the book.
Where Sally Rooney excels is sharing the vulnerability and raw emotion of early 20s relationships. Having read both of her novels, I think she does this better in Normal People. Conversations with Friends often feels haughty and cold, giving the reader the air our narrarator Frances tends to give everyone else. My main issue with this novel is that a lot of things have been jumbled together, very much in the messy way that life hands us situations: problems with parents, money, health, friendships, relationships, sex. But the novel doesn't tie them together well, and Frances isn't giving the reader anything to hold onto.
That sounds like a recipe for disastrous unhappiness, I said.
You're twenty-one, said Melissa. You should be disastrously unhappy."
That's it. That's the book.
Where Sally Rooney excels is sharing the vulnerability and raw emotion of early 20s relationships. Having read both of her novels, I think she does this better in Normal People. Conversations with Friends often feels haughty and cold, giving the reader the air our narrarator Frances tends to give everyone else. My main issue with this novel is that a lot of things have been jumbled together, very much in the messy way that life hands us situations: problems with parents, money, health, friendships, relationships, sex. But the novel doesn't tie them together well, and Frances isn't giving the reader anything to hold onto.