Conversations with Friends

Sally Rooney has a way of writing very engagingly. I never once felt bored or like it could be shorter. I like how (for me at least) the writing/ thought process of the characters were realistic and sometimes very overreactive displaying what high of a mountain our temper can climb when we're angry/ sad. I loved the way it ended. Elaborating would have spoiled it. Found some of the tropes repeated in Normal People but I think it fit quite nicely. I definitely recommend reading it.

This book follows the life of Frances and her friend Bobbie and the relationship they develop with a married couple.
I enjoyed the writing and read the book quickly. Additionally, I liked the inclusion of characters with mental health issues and chronic illnesses.

However, I had the feeling I was going to dislike this book and unfortunately I was not wrong (I don't hate it but I think it was just ok)
I mean, you know it is a Sally Rooney book:
- Portraits a writer as main character;
- The MC will show no emotions, enter into several abusive and toxic relationships, have dispassionate and sometimes non-consensual sex;
- The main character will hurt herself or try to get hurt in order to feel something;
- Include politics in the conversations to convey depth.

I really liked her other books and I was entertained enough with this one but I might have reached my limit of tortured characters, at least for now.

Прекрасная, щемящая душу песнь молодости и той богатой событиями жизни, которая в пору молодости происходит внутри каждого. Когда каждое событие - либо счастье в абсолюте, либо неописуемо печально, и все они уникальны, и только с тобой, только здесь, только сейчас. Салли Руни своим исключительным талантом нарисовала идеальный квадрат отношений, который отсекает собой весь внешний мир, сосредотачивая в себе внутренний, и то (или того), кто в него ненароком попадает. Этот квадрат прекрасен своей геометрией, своей изящностью, и печален - своей замкнутостью, потому что ничто не может его разомкнуть, не разрушив его исключительные внутренний мир. Каждая строка этого романа отзывалась во мне тихим стоном, доносящимся из глубины лет: я все это знала, чувствовала, это все со мной было....

There's a kinship between this book and Elif Batuman's [b:The Idiot 30962053 The Idiot Elif Batuman https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474782288s/30962053.jpg 51577226]. Both have young female protagonists who just entered adulthood, and both built heavily on conversations (the face-to-face and the email/messenger kind) to show the frail and complex dynamics in human communication. While Conversations with Friends lacks Batuman's wit and somewhat the likeability of its heroine, it does add a very seductive dose of sexy. Despite the characters not being the easiest to like due to their slightly pretentious vibe, I quickly warmed up to them and was pulled in (3-day read!). A lot of the story deals with the facades they (we) built to hide true emotions and when to let down those shields to let others in. The core relationships in focus are Frances and Nick, who start an affair based on attraction and sex and then very slowly transform it into something more, and Frances and Bobbi, who are long-time-friends (exes? friends? something completely new?) and share a deep love and co-dependency. I also thought the dynamic between Frances and her parents was particularly touching (I loved her mom). I was intrigued by where the story took Nick, it felt like a novel kind of character. One that is somewhat condemned for his passivity (Melissa's angry email!!) yet also showed a self-awareness and acknowledgement that seems to allow for every sort of character. I am still slightly perplexed but also charmed by that last phone conversation and it's outcome. Another surprising detail that I very much appreciated was how Rooney wove endometriosis into the plot.

Se que a muchísima gente le encanta este libro pero a mí me ha parecido horrible. A pesar de que me lo he leído relativamente rápido, he sufrido leyendo porque es que no lo he disfrutado ni un poco.

Todos los personajes se me han hecho extremadamente insufribles, todos son horribles de verdad, sus pensamientos, como actúan, no tiene ningún sentido, todos ellos estaban como super detached de lo que estaba pasando a su alrededor y todo son malas personas, aparte de que son extremadamente pesados, me han disgustado todos demasiado.

Quizás otro factor por el que no me ha gustado el libro es que me lo habían vendido como “un libro para cuando sientes que estás perdido en la vida o detrás que los demás”, como persona que últimamente ha estado pasado por sentirse así, tenía muchas ganas de leer el libro para intentar encontrar un poco de confort, pero es que no me he podido sentir identificada con la protagonista en ningun momento, y no creo que el libro debería seguir publicitandose así, porque en mi opinion le protagonista sabe perfectamente lo que esta haciendo, sí, tiene problemas, pero en ningun momento he encontrado que “estuviera perdida en la vida” y eso también me ha dado mucha rabia y creo que ese ha sido el principal motivo de mi disgusto hacia esta lectura.

Para acabar diciendo algo positivo, me ha gustado la forma en la que está escrito, pero poco más, no lo recomendaría.

2.5:

Here's a bunch of god-awful people, and the many expectedly... questionable decisions they made. I almost dropped this, like, 17 different times. I just can't stand the theatrics over their trivial privileged people problems, and the fact that real people don't talk like that was just the cherry on top. It was the whitest thing I ever did read, and I've read Normal People.

Surprisingly, I ended up liking Bobbi the most, even though I metaphorically rolled my eyes every time she opened her mouth at first. And Sally's writing is fairly engaging, even when her dull roster of characters can very much convince you otherwise, and this was shaping up to be a solid 3 star read. But then, that ending... so disappointing, and I didn't even have expectations to begin with. There were aspects of the story in general that I appreciated better here than in Normal People, but absolutely this was a flop for me.

Being my third Rooney book, I'm no stranger to this style of prose. But it's clear why Rooney's debut was so successful - the book was comparably more fascinating. Although with equally damaged characters and macabre internal dialogues, this book's relationships were more complex and hence did a better job of stringing readers along the classic will-they-won't-they. Perhaps it's simply because it involved a four-way relationship rather than the usual two or three that made it such a dizzying success.

I have half the book to go. I've read three other things whilst trying to slog through this one. I'm not encouraged by the reviews. Like, so far, um...these characters aren't Millennials. Unless this is a period piece, and I just missed that somehow, these people are too young to be Millennial. So...uh, critics, she's not the voice of a generation. I don't know the background of author or novel at this point, and I'm not finished. So we'll see.

I confess, I would have put this book off indefinitely, but Thomas MacGregor was reading it onset, so I HAD to read it then.

So. Finally finished it.

No.

I was toying with reading her next book, but I think I'd be too annoyed. Bobbi, Melissa, and Nick weren't very engaging, and Frances was awful. They could all be awful. But I cannot deal with them being boring, which Frances especially was. This book name-drops academic things to seem scholarly. We're told Frances is a Communist, but she really seems aimless and pretentious. And the whole thing was rather shallow. It kept telling me rather than showing me. Too much passive description is boring.

I will say kudos on non-traditional relationships, but everyone was a dolt. And Nick had no business have an affair with a 21-year old. I will also say kudos for dealing with endometriosis, although Frances' case was handled rather anticlimactically, as were her self-image issues and her cutting.

Frances says she has no personality. She didn't; nor does this book.

Berlatar di Dublin, novel ini menyelami kehidupan Frances, seorang mahasiswa cerdas dan introspektif, dan Bobbi, mantan kekasihnya yang kini menjadi sahabat terbaik. Dunia mereka terbalik ketika mereka bertemu Melissa, seorang fotografer karismatik, dan suaminya yang misterius, Nick.Melissa adalah seorang fotografer dan penulis, sedangkan Nick adalah seorang aktor.
Ketika hubungan mereka berkembang, Frances mulai menjalin hubungan rahasia dengan Nick. Hubungan ini mempengaruhi persahabatannya dengan Bobbi, terutama karena mereka sering mengandalkan satu sama lain secara emosional. Sepanjang cerita, Frances bergulat dengan perasaan cemburu, ketidakpastian tentang identitas dirinya, dan dinamika kekuasaan dalam hubungan mereka berempat.
Jujur, aku kurang memahami apa yang ingin disampaikan oleh Sally Rooney disini. Aku pernah membaca literary fiction sebelumnya, dan tidak kesulitan mengikuti. Jadi mungkin memang buku ini bukan untukku.

Even though there is something annoying about Sally Rooney's books (I think it reminds me of something someone who doesn't read would love / think is the epitome of art), I get sucked in and like her characters and think she does a good job developing plot lines. I preferred Normal People to this one, but this was a great quick quarantine read.

it was fine. first half really had a grip on me and I read it in one day but then the rest of the book was just like idk dragging and here I am a week later finally done. i think the story just wasn't interesting to me, I didn't care abt a single character and they were all annoying and the only thing that kept me going was the cheating aspect but it wasn't really that interesting after a while. hate to compare it to normal poeple but I highlighted half of that book and think abt it everyday and abt all the beautiful sentences and conversations and this one just didn't have it in my opinion