Book Review: Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

 Conversations with Friends 

By Sally Rooney 

(Debut Novel) 

Published Year : 2017

Page Count: 321 pages 

Medium Used: Paperback 

Genre : Contemporary Fiction, Romance, Complicated Relationships, Clinical Depression, Endometriosis, 2025-read. 

Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀

My, my!! What a prose! The writing felt amazing. So did the character development. I felt like having read some personal journal of a real person ,not a novel or a book of fiction! Highly recommend to all lovers of good books. I am also appreciative of the fact that there is minimal to no smut in the narration. I usually cringe and walk away or skip the pages in books where it is there. This didn't feel like a debut work at all. Written with an ease of professional! 

Frances and Bobbie were a thing. They used to have a lesbian relationship. They stopped being lovers , for whatever reason, and remained solid, best friends. In their lives enter Melissa - a journalist and essayist and her husband, Nick, a middle aged actor whose stage performances and appeal are coming to an end. Nick and Frances hit it off immediately. She does all the admiring and takes charge of their relationship initially. Nick sort of just walks along whatever she wants and needs. Anyone would like that kind of complete control and so does Frances. She falls deeply in love with him and knowing that he would never leave his wife Melissa, she indulges in an illicit sexual, one night stand with a medical student. This sort of starts a battle of possessiveness and jealousy between Frances and Nick. Melissa learns about their affair. Bobbie gets upset with Frances over some article she wrote without the knowledge of Bobbie. Frances develops a serious physical ailment that has no treatment and she has to suffer through periods of extreme,intense pain. There seems to be no escape for Francis who feels lonely and empty without Nick but also doesn't want him to leave his wife. She is confused and harbors sentiments that are self harming. I know that the book has ended but I can feel if this is a real life story, then it doesn't end well for Frances or Nick or Melissa or Bobbie. Unless there is some divine intervention and some silver lining appears!