I know this book got added to my must read list once I finished with Normal People, but now that a television adaptation for Sally Rooney’s novel Conversations with Friends is coming to Hulu at the end of the month, I finally sat down and read the novel!
Gotta say…didn’t love this. I suppose I give Rooney a ton of credit for making a character that is both relatable, but highly unlikeable. Frances is a 21 year old Irish student studying English in England somewhere. She has an extremely close friend, a former girlfriend, named Bobbi, who in Frances’ eyes is confident and intelligent and in a lot of ways the opposite of Frances. Both women decided their goal in life is to never work…okay. Yeah, I’d freaking love that, but it’s not realistic. I know that Frances is set on this goal because it will make her seem like she came from a more well-to-do background, and that at 21 years old most people don’t really know what they want out of life, but I just didn’t care for her projection of this.
She’s clearly a good poet, which is why she and Bobbi ran into Melissa in the first place. Melissa is in her late 30s and is a quasi-famous photographer and author. Bobbi is immediately obsessed, but the two girls get to be a part of Melissa’s life the same night they meet her. That’s also the same night Frances gets a glimpse of Melissa’ husband, Nick. From there, the two awkwardly flirt with one another, but it’s through an email exchange that the two really bond. They start an affair shortly after Melissa’s birthday party. Beyond that point, Frances whips back and forth emotionally about what she and Nick have. She’s really possessive, even though her actions are pretty hypocritical. The secretiveness of the relationship hinders her relationship with Bobbi and her parents, but she seems unable to get off this derailing train of her own making.
At the very end of the novel, Frances finally starts to turn everything around, but only after spiraling from a diagnosis of endometriosis. it really forces her to take a step back and examine what’s important in her life after wallowing in pain for a short while. It’s clear the people in her life love her, she just has to be willing to be more vulnerable to them. I found myself thinking back to these characters a few days after finishing the book, which I suppose is a sign that I liked it more than I thought, but it was still something I don’t think I actually enjoyed reading all that much. To be fair, I think I felt the same way about Normal People, so maybe the upcoming adaptation of Conversations with Friends will really help round the experience out more positively. We’ll see!