Set in modern-day Dublin, Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends ostensibly tells the tale of Frances and Bobbi, ex-girlfriends and spoken word poets who find themselves befriending photographer/journalist Melissa and her actor husband Nick and setting in motion a chain of events as they become embroiled with the couple’s social lives and they with theirs. If you like books that are focused on the complicated relationships people can become entangled in, despite their better judgment, then Conversations with Friends is one for you.

I will be honest upfront – I appreciated the craft in this debut novel but this was not a book for me, I just don’t get the fuss surrounding it and I don’t think it’s all that darkly witty or exquisitely alive, as the marketing would have me believe. Was it an easy read? Yes, absolutely, the writing style was simple enough to follow and I devoured it in two days. Did I enjoy the book whilst it lasted? Yes, I suppose. Will I remember this book in weeks to come? To be brutally honest, probably not.

I am not too far dissimilar to the novel’s protagonist, Frances, on paper – I’m of a similar age, I went to university, and I too am probably of this “seminal” age in terms of my life. Even so, for me, the large problem in Conversation with Friends lays in the choice of Frances as a narrator. She sees herself as ironic and cool-headed, some might say cold and detached, to the point of seeming unconcerned about the events that are happening to her. At times, this works well – for example, it is easy to see Frances’ attempts at suppressing any feelings or emotions she might be having (or perhaps not having at all) for Nick, but on other occasions it simply prevents a reader from empathising with her or rooting for her character at all. The sex scenes between them, for me, were excruciating to read because they were so stilted and not in any way even fleetingly intimate. Yet I was told by Frances that sometimes they were passionate and that she enjoyed sex with Nick – I saw no evidence of that or, at least, Frances was incapable of expressing it to readers. And I’m not entirely sure she was as unaffected as she made out. I have read books with unlikable protagonists and narrators alike and, despite this biased account of the story, I have always managed to take some kind of joy in reading from their perspective all the same. Sadly, for me, this wasn’t the case with Frances – she goes through some pretty horrifying personal and medical issues but all are told in her clinically detached voice and so, if she doesn’t care, why should a reader?

I liked Nick. I probably shouldn’t have, but I did. Maybe it says something psychologically about me that I liked him best when he was being a little bit pathetic or cowardly? Or when he snarked at Frances with something glib, but also very accurate, about their relationship. (See: “Who? he said. The one who isn’t interested in me any more, or the one who’s just using me for sex?”) Perhaps this is Sally Rooney’s entire intention and I fell right into that trap, just as Frances did. Their conversations admittedly are quite funny and engaging. But we are never truly allowed to get to understand Nick, or his morality, or his decisions, because we see him through Frances’ eyes, and she isn’t the most unbiased mediator. Everything he does or says is reported by her, but Sally Rooney never lets the reader know whether Frances’ judgment of him is accurate or not, so we must draw our own conclusions. When it came down to it, I even liked Nick’s wife Melissa, despite Frances’ half-hearted attempts later in the novel to subtly portray her as some kind of cold, negligent wife who was jealous of Nick’s affair with a much-younger woman, much to Melissa’s convincing protestations that she is not jealous in the least.

Even Bobbi felt incomplete, I never truly saw her as a fleshed out character and part of that is due to Frances’ viewpoint – though her best friend and ex-girlfriend alike, she still felt distant somehow. You can never truly know another person inside and out because you can’t be in their head – this is a fact, it’s accurate to life, but it’s also intensely frustrating to a reader trying to figure out a character. I don’t feel like I particularly knew Bobbi (or even Frances) any better by the time I reached the end of the book. Likewise, close relatives of Frances (i.e. her own mother and father) felt distant and shadowy figures, not quite fully formed characters for the reader, and a potentially intriguing plotline concerning her father’s personal issues was never focused on. Instead, Conversations with Friends was a completely self-absorbed story about Frances’ dramatic inner turmoil that actually wasn’t all that turbulent, or at least not anywhere near as turbulent as it could/should have been to a narrator who wasn’t quite as flat and (attempting to be) apathetic about her own life.

Ultimately, I felt that this book didn’t go anywhere – there were no big climactic moments and the book just seemed to trundle on in a flat trajectory, there weren’t really peaks and troughs to the experience. That isn’t to say that there weren’t events within the narrative that were dramatic – quite the contrary, in fact, several plot points are very dramatic, but they are all told in that same self-absorbed, but emotionally detached, narrative voice. Rooney writes in a firmly tell-don’t-show manner, but the problem is that her vehicle for “telling” reports all of her conversations with friends in such a disengaged way that I was never sure I was being told anything of real value.

Perhaps that is the entire point of the book; it proves that life doesn’t have a dramatic rise-and-fall storybook trajectory in which the story closes on the last page of the book with a definitive happy (or sad) ending, all wrapped up nice and neatly with a bow on top. This book ended without actually giving any sense of closure; if anything, the ending suggests a cyclical and (probably) self-destructive trajectory of these characters. They don’t go anywhere because they’re still there, doing the same things, despite anyone’s better judgment… because life is like that, and if we as people don’t always learn from our mistakes, then why should we require a book’s protagonist to do so? Why should an author be duty bound to make us like (or even just empathise with) their protagonist – and is it wrong to expect that from an author and their work? Despite all this, at the end of the day, I have questions, not answers, from this book and, because of that, Conversations with Friends feels unfinished and, for me, a little unsatisfying to read.

Conversations with Friends - 5 star review, for Netgalley

Conversations with Friends is a gift. I read it compulsively in a weekend, though it never felt like I was reading words on a page, but in a conversation with the narrator, Frances. My initial thoughts on finishing, as I noted in my Goodreads review, was that it was "unsettling and fantastic", and it has taken me a week since then to think about it properly.

Frances is a young, bright student at Trinity College, and when we meet her is reading for a literary agent by day, and writing and performing spoken word pieces by night with her best friend and ex girlfriend, Bobbi. The story begins with the two women meeting a third woman Melissa, who is a writer and photographer who wants to write a profile of them. The meeting is introduced by a photograph Melissa takes of the pair, and Frances's reflection on how she and Bobbi look to herself, to Melissa, and to an objective observer.

This reflection and observation of the dynamics of the groups through which she moves, and how she fits into them, becomes Frances's main concern as she narrates the next few months of her life, and what happens when she and Bobbi, their relationship already complicated, become friends with Melissa and her husband Nick. The glamorous older couple intrigue, and are intrigued by the younger pair, and an affair within the group threatens all of the relationships within it.


I felt myself be drawn in totally by this sharp and self aware, though at times naive and insecure protagonist. Sally Rooney has managed to make a group of characters I am sure I would personally dislike incredibly interesting, and kept me going back for more. I can't wait to see what she does next.

'Conversations with Friends’ by Sally Rooney tells the story of twenty-one-year-old student and aspiring poet Frances and her friend and ex-girlfriend Bobbi who live in Dublin and perform spoken word pieces together. They meet Melissa, a journalist and photographer in her thirties who wants to write a profile of their work, and her husband Nick who is an actor. Frances soon begins an affair with Nick which profoundly changes the dynamic of her friendship with Bobbi and becomes very messy very quickly to say the least.

Rooney’s characters may be too self-absorbed to be likeable but their flaws are certainly convincing. Frances's naivety, selfishness and self-contradiction is captured very realistically, especially the reasons she gives for justifying her actions where Nick is concerned long after their relationship ought to have fizzled out. The narrative is told from Frances's perspective and her personal observations reveal a lack of self-confidence about what she wants to do with her life. As a natural introvert, Frances is intimidated at first by the ease with which Bobbi effortlessly becomes part of Nick and Melissa's social circle in modern middle-class Dublin. Her distant relationship with her parents including her alcoholic father is also explored, as is the way in which she deals with chronic pain eventually diagnosed as endometriosis.

Much of the attention on ‘Conversation with Friends’ will inevitably focus on Rooney’s youth, as she is publishing her first novel in the UK this month at just 26 years of age. Her debut is impressively self-assured and based on the quality of her sharply observed prose, it is also no surprise that she is a former debating champion. She is very good at writing dialogue, particularly in its more contemporary forms such as instant messaging conversations, but her real skill as an author lies in showing what has been left unsaid between the characters, how they fail to communicate properly with each other and how they deal with the fallout of the frustrating mistakes they make. There are no neat conclusions to the many strands of the story which feels somewhat appropriate.

'Conversations with Friends' is one of my favourite debuts of the year so far - it is very much an up-to-the-minute coming-of-age novel which is likely to resonate a lot with female millennials in particular and I will definitely be looking out for more of Rooney's work in the future. Many thanks to Faber and Faber for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

A very tepid 3 stars. Conversations with Friends is another one of those books about not particularly nice people entangled in awkward relationships. I've certainly read many books of this nature that I've found clever and quite enjoyed, but this one was just ok. Frances and Bobbi -- both young women who used to be in a relationship with each other -- become entangled with somewhat older heterosexual couple Nick and Melissa. It's all told from Frances' perspective. She doesn't seem to be able to figure out what she wants. Nor does anyone else. It gets messy and it stays pretty messy. I was attracted to this one partially because it's set in Dublin, but it could have been anywhere in North America or Europe. I'm at a low three stars because I did enjoy the the first half of Conversations with Friends, but my enjoyment started to wane in the second half. Frances' inner gaze and self-centredness started to feel suffocating. I don't have much more to say. Time to move on to something that makes me less grumpy. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

I really liked the synopsis of this book but it didn't impress me when I started reading.

In my opinion, the book lacked excitement and pace and it failed to keep my interest. The saga between the friends, and their complicated relationships, was familiar and laboured. Although the writing style was good, there wasn't enough substance to engage me throughout resulting in a bit of a boring read for me.

Frances and Bobbi are two students, formerly lovers and now just friends. They perform poetry gigs together. Frances is the poet and Bobbi the more accomplished actor of the two. They meet Melissa, a thirty-something writer and photographer, and become close friends with her and her moderately famous actor husband Nick.
The main purpose of this novel is in the dialogue and interaction between the two couples, and the plot is the secondary glue holding it together, but only just.
It is difficult to empathise with or like any of the characters, and I struggled to keep up interest in the endless and repetitive soul searching about not very much.
I was disappointed in this read, well written as it is, I was glad when it was over.

Not my kind of book. I was bored by the story (self absorbed 21 year old poet/student has affair with a married man), and the clumsy writing style didnt help either.

'Well I’m gay and Frances is a communist'.
Frances and Bobbi, both twenty-one and very bright, are university students in Dublin. They’ve had a gay relationship but are still best friends; Frances is an aspiring writer and she and Bobbi perform spoken word poetry at night. When they meet Melissa, a photographer in her thirties who wants to do a profile on them, Bobbi is attracted to Melissa and Frances begins an affair with Nick, Melissa’s glamorous actor husband.
Everyone labels Frances as cool, but it is more that she is guarded and reserved – there’s a history of family instability and, in spite of her political beliefs, she’s financially dependent on her father, a sad shadowy alcoholic. Seen through Frances’ eyes the world is flat, colourless and cerebral. She’s detached from her own emotions and, as she and Bobbi analyse their lives, without becoming emotionally involved, the language of the novel reinforces this sense of distancing.
'I had a headache, I hadn’t eaten. My body felt used-up and worthless to me. I didn’t want to put food or medicine into it anymore.'
At first Frances hardly knows herself – she is young and naïve; it’s only by observing her own actions and reactions that she comes to a level of understanding, as she tries to reconcile her intellectual beliefs with the messy reality of relationships. She falls in love with Nick but, of course, he comes with his own baggage and vulnerabilities – a complicated backstory of depression and his wife’s infidelities.
Frances keeps the affair secret and ultimately runs the risk of alienating everyone she cares about: her father, Nick and Bobbi. She uses her ‘coolness’ as a shield to hide behind and when everything starts to go wrong, both emotionally and physically, she starts to fall apart and takes it out on her own body.
By the end of the novel Frances is beginning to grow up: she has learned that it’s impossible to live in a completely cerebral way; like everyone else, she is subject to the limitations of her body. If she wants to be happy she will have to compromise.
You live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position.
In this intriguing novel. Sally Rooney shows how precocious intellectual brilliance can mask ordinary vulnerability, and she has achieved a rare feat in letting us observe the complex process of Frances coming to terms with how to live her life.

Francis is 21, quiet, unassuming, and a talented poet. Her best friend is Bobbi, wild, funny and hugely extrovert.
Somewhat of a double act on the performance poet circuit they meet Melissa, a writer with great renown in the literary world. Keen to profile Frances and Bobbi she invites them into her home and introduces them to her literary friends and her actor husband Nick.
As Bobbi grows close to Melissa, Frances finds herself drawn to Nick, the two embarking on an affair via e-mail, instant messaging, text and finally in person.
It is not until Frances and Bobbi join Melissa and Nick on holiday that she realises she is actually in love with Nick and Nick with her and the affair even continues when Melissa finds out.
This story is not just a story about an affair, it is more about the characters and Frances's character in particular. In fact so deep does the author delve into Frances characterisation the more autobiographical it feels.
The affair itself is cathartic in different ways for Frances and nick.
For Nick it is recovery from mental health issues, for Frances it is dealing with her unhappiness and illness and learning to enjoy the friendships and the life that she has. The ending made me want to cry.
A beautifully written insightful novel that says much about modern living today. Quite hard to believe this is a debut novel.

Conversations with Friends (the title and sunny cover are fairly misleading) is a stark, reflective novel which asks the reader to inhabit the mind of 21 year old poet and college student, Frances. She appears to be coolly detached from her feelings, at least in the beginning, and analytical to the point of neurosis.

We get a sense of Frances' excruciating self-consciousness at the start of the novel, when she and her ex-girlfriend Bobbi are invited back to the home of Melissa, a "slightly famous" writer/photographer they've just met. In the taxi, Frances is "ready for the challenge of visiting a stranger's home, already preparing compliments and certain facial expressions to make myself seem charming". Upon arriving, she makes a point of deciding to "remember everything about her home, so I could describe it to our other friends later and Bobbi could agree".

The novel follows her and her artsy circle from poetry readings to dinner parties to a holiday at a beach house in France. The plot, such as it is, mainly deals with sexual entanglements and jealousies within the group.

These characters are disconnected, both emotionally and in the literal, digital sense. Tinder makes an appearance, and there's one mention of Facebook, but otherwise this book could almost be set at any time in the past 20 years. Communication is via email and instant messaging, and there's no sense of the hyper connected, social media-fuelled world we live in now. Presumably this was deliberate (the author is 25), but it just feels anachronistic and at odds with the book's realism.

Frances' musings are alternately mundane, lambent, and pretentious, as befits a young person with more intelligence than experience. It's not clear whether she's become any wiser by the end, for all her introspection, but I guess that's not the point. It's more about exploring the nature of relationships and the power dynamics within them.

This novel, like its characters, is pessimistic and aloof, as well as incisive and real. Unnerving, and occasionally scraping close to the bone, and you've got to respect writing that can achieve that.

That the Bechdel Test for movies even exists has to be one of the more depressing minor details of modern times. If you’ve never come across it, it’s a way of evaluating a film’s representation of women using these criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. High standards, indeed. And yet, more movies than you would think fail miserably.

But we all know Hollywood is crass. Whereas the world of literature is so much more engaged, interesting, broad and inclusive. Literature breathes through inclusivity; rare would be the mainstream fiction novel that would fail the test, surely? So, why is it still surprising to see two beautiful, young, female characters intelligently, entertainingly and unforgivingly engaged with the world? Because Frances and Bobbi, Conversations With Friends eponymous heroines, spark off the page in an inspirational and startling way.

The two women are best friends, and exes, studying at university together in Dublin. Frances writes spoken work poetry and they perform it together. It’s after one of these performances they meet, then become friends with, an older couple - photographer and essayist Melissa and her actor husband Nick. Bobbi develops an infatuation with Melissa, and Frances with Nick. Then, pretty much, nothing happens. And it’s wonderful.

The story is told from Frances’ perspective. It’s full of her poetic observations, quiet and beautiful views on the world, somewhat hazy, like a bee casting “a comma of a shadow” on the wall; but it’s also grounded, modern and funny. For example, on foreign trips: “We always took the cheapest flights, early in the morning or late at night, and as a consequence we usually spent the first day of the trip feeling irritable and trying to find free WiFi.”

It’s sharp and insightful, gentle and comforting, frank and charmingly open. Witty, wry and full of the tenderness, viciousness and pain of friendship. And, over a series of small anarchys, gradually breaks apart the idea of who it is OK to love, and in what way.

As the title suggests, there are conversations, over many dinners and coffees. This is a book you might like as a dinner party guest - topics are floated and discussed with intelligence and emotion, setting your mind off on a million thoughtful tangents from the story as you read. But, more often than not, it is Bobbi talking, and Frances listening. “Listening to Bobbi theorise in that way was exciting. She spoke in clear, brilliant sentences, like she was making shapes in the air out of glass or water.”

In fact, the story itself is not in the conversations, but, rather wonderfully, in the things that are not said. In truth, this book is written almost entirely between the lines, which is quite a feat. While the characters are intellectually ferocious and clear, they are emotionally naive and muddled. We discover Frances at the rate she starts to understand herself. As she observes: “Before that summer I’d had no idea I was the kind of person who would accept an invitation like this from a woman whose husband I’d repeatedly slept with. This information was morbidly interesting to me.”

And, wonderfully, as we discover with her, we feel with her too. It’s immersive. This book feels intimate: with Dublin, with the author, with Frances. You may end up a little bit in love with Bobbi, a little bit in love with Nick, and perhaps feeling a little more paranoid and anxious about yourself than you did before. But it’s worth it.

This is a hard book to rate and review: on one hand, I didn't find it particularly sharp or witty or fresh; on the other, I gulped it down in a day. It's certainly easy and untaxing reading (so good for commutes, holidays etc.) but is still a step-up from chick-lit.

Frances, the first-person protagonist, is a blurry character: her role in the story is a pretty dominant and dominating one yet her voice makes her out to be always vulnerable, always second in her head to other people: her best friend and some-time lover, Bobbi; the older man with whom she has an awkward affair.

This definitely feels like yet another book influenced by Lena Dunham et al. but for all its hipster credentials (Frances and Bobbi are Trinity Dublin students on the spoken word circuit, Frances writes poetry and wants to destroy capitalism) the book this reminded me of most is Edna O'Brien's classic The Country Girls. There's a similar naivety about Frances, the old dynamic of young woman/older man, body issues and vulnerabilities - and it's somewhat depressing to think that a book written in 1960, almost 60 years ago, still has currency here however different the superficial trappings are.

So I'm a bit on the fence with this one: it's an enjoyable enough switch-off read but somewhat disappointing in relation to some of the enthusiastic press reviews I've read, and not nearly as fresh, clever and hip as it perhaps could have been.

It was difficult to decide between 3 or 4 stars for this one but I've gone with 3 stars in the end.

The story is told from Frances' point of view, a twenty one year old student in Dublin. Her best friend, and ex-girlfriend, Bobbi become friends with an early thirties married couple, Melissa and Nick.

The characters are unlikable and narcissistic - with both 'couples' having very strange relationships with another. The fact that Melissa and Nick befriend this young couple and invite them to spend the night and a holiday with them is strange.

However, as the story went on and Frances begins her affair with Nick, I was drawn to the troubles of Frances that she often keeps to herself, and how she tries to cope.

Conversations With Friends is a funny, exciting, and sometimes darkly relatable novel about being in your early twenties and about how to live your life. The story is told by Frances, a twenty-one year old student living in Dublin who writes poetry that she performs with her best friend and ex-girlfriend Bobbi. When they meet the older journalist Melissa who wants to profile them, they are drawn into the world of Melissa and her actor husband Nick, a world of tension, money, and wine. Frances begins an affair with Nick and soon everything is complicatedly entwined as they all consider what they want and what they believe.

The prose is fresh and somehow distinctive, giving Frances’ observational view of the world whilst accurately describing minuscule feelings and emotions. The descriptions of the sensations of being a student and in your early twenties are particularly astute, for example Rooney’s accurate depiction of the feeling of writing an essay, isolating yourself from the world and then emerging to find everything feeling strangely novel. Frances’ disorientation with the world and with the way she is living comes through, particularly when she tries to deal with feeling down and discovering she has a chronic pain issue. Bobbi is another great character, someone whose truth is clouded by the way that Frances sees and describes her, but who shines through as lively and opinionated. The main characters are complex and messed up, arguing about love and ideology and hurting each other a lot.

Engaging and gripping, it is not as much the narrative as the character relationships and the prose that keep you reading. It is filled with dark humour and literary references alongside relatable emotions, tangled-up relationships, and some background discussion of sexuality, class, and mental health. Rooney has created an exciting and enjoyable read about friendship, love, and the imperfection of being twentysomething.

I have a feeling that this might be a love or hate book. Although it is well written I found Conversations with Friends difficult to review. While none of the characters was likeable, I did find them interesting. The story is set in Ireland and France and there is a good sense of place. However, some of the cultural references seemed a little heavy handed.

Frances is a twenty-one year old student who is in thrall to her best friend and former lover, Bobbi. Frances writes poetry and she and Bobbi are performing successful spoken word sessions together in Dublin when they meet Melissa, a journalist, and her husband, Nick. They are invited into the couple's gilded circle and Frances begins a secret affair with Nick.

An interesting exploration about friendship and adult relationship ensues and I enjoyed reading the novel but I was unsure about the ending which I felt to be abrupt and unrealistic. The material and premise are different from last year's successful coming of age story, The Girls, but the style of writing felt similar and Conversations with Friends may well appeal to those same readers. Thanks to NetGalley and Faber & Faber for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

Oh dear, I'm afraid this wasn't for me, I don't think I have ever hated fictional characters so much! Sally Rooney is obviously a talented writer, and I am sure she has a brilliant and probably award-winning career ahead of her, but I think this particular story is best left to younger readers - I couldn't sympathize with anyone's actions, especially Frances and Nick, who I found horrendously selfish.

Absolutely loved this book. I could enthuse for hours there is so much to say about this novel, which all other positive reviewers are saying. The only thing that stood out for me that hasn't been mentioned elsewhere is communication. Today there are so many ways to communicate and so much information available to us and yet humans still fail to manage their relationships in a clear and honest way. I was impressed with the way Sally Rooney created four anti-heroes of quite unlikable, selfish people and yet I still wanted to know how they dealt with life matters.

This book was so intense! I found it utterly engrossing and truly fascinating! It focuses on the relationship one woman has with her best friend and ex, her peers and a writer and the writers husband. I read this book in a matter of days and looked forward to each sitting to read it! I didn't understand all of it and the geography of the piece was confusing with some plot-lines which weren't tied up neatly - it almost feels like there could be a sequel although I think it would be stronger without. I can't wait to read more by this author!

I really like Sally's unconventional style and dry view of the world.
The conversations themselves were real and raw and thought-provoking.
Something different and a fresh voice that is desperately needed in a market saturated with a lot of the same sort of story,

I thought his book was well written, but I really didn't like the characters. At first, I didn't know if Frances was male or female. However, all four main characters weren't likable. It was a good study in growing up.