#113 Conversations with friends

 Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney 

This is the second book ive read from Sally Rooney and can i just make it known that i feel like she just gets me? Like every word, sentence, paragraph etc feels like its written for me. Ive never felt that way about an authors work even my all time fav authors. I dont know whether its the Irish connection or what but both Normal People and Conversations with Friends spoke with my very soul. Im so annoyed that ive only discovered her work now even though shes been published for a few years. Better late than never, eh?

Conversations with Friends is set in Dublin (where my mum lives, yay!) it follows our main protagonist Francis and her ex-girlfriend/best friend Bobbi. At the beginning of the story Francis and Bobbi meet Melissa and her husband Nick at a spoken word poetry event that Francis and Bobbi were performing at. 

Francis is a twentyone and is studying at Trinity College in Dublin, she has never worked and lives off an allowance from her alcoholic father who she rarely sees. She has a somewhat bizarre relationship with her mother and is all together pretty angsty as a human. Needless to say i absoloutley loved her! 

Melissa is a journalist and Nick is a lesser known actor and they are both in their mid thirties. Melissa invites Francis and Bobbi back to her house after the poetry event for a drink and it all starts from there really. Bobbi becomes a bit obsessed with Melissa and hangs off her every word which leaves Francis in the background and feeling like a bit of a third wheel. As a direct consequence of this Francis takes the opportunity to get to know Nick and forms the same obsession that Bobbi has with Melissa only with Nick. 

I loved the writing style so much, i love how with Normal People this book is so authentically Irish. She uses the same slang and doesnt dumb things down or change things for the non Irish reader. For example she has a meaningless conversation with one of Nicks friends with Francis and he asks her a question about the All Ireland which anyone outside of Ireland probably wouldnt even know what that is (its the final of the Gaelic football) but i just loved that and the whole book just felt like home to me. Another thing i really enjoyed was the endometriosis rep! i was diagnosed with Endometriosis over 18 months ago and have never heard it mentioned in a book before even though quite a lot of women suffer from it so props to Sally Rooney for that! 

I managed to devour this book in under 24 hours, i was so captivated by it. I found it fascinating that Francis was having an affair with Nick whilst hiding it from all of her friends and his wife whilst still hanging out with them all in a group, it made for a fascinating read. The characters are all written to be quite unlikeable but i found that made me more drawn to each of them, they were so flawed and real. 

Dont get me wrong there were a few passages of dialogue in this where i found myself thinking is this necessary to the plot or is this Sally Rooney just trying to sound woke? like there were a few conversations regarding monogamy between Bobbi and Francis that just was so unnecessary really. I was also mostly confused with Francis' and Nicks relationship... like i got the point that he had depression and his wife is a bit up herself and didnt give him much attention but really... what does a twnety one year old have to offer him? He was a somewhat successful actor whos married and owns his own home. His motivations didnt make that much sense really. 

Overall, i did really enjoy this and will subsequently read everything that Sally Rooney ever writes. She has become a new fav of mine from 2020 (thats one good thing to come from the shit show that has been 2020 so far) I have read some of the less than good reviews and i must admit i do get some of their points but books are for enjoyment and i think if you dont read into the sub text of every little thing you are able to enjoy it for what it is. I can see me rereading this one constantly.