24 in ’24 Challenge – Book 13 “Conversations with Friends” by Sally Rooney

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney is the story of four people and the shifting relationships between them. Frances and Bobbi are students in Dublin, they are ex-lovers and remain close friends. Frances is a talented writer, while Bobbi the more gifted performer – they perform poetry together. Melissa is a photographer who wants to profile the two young women and she invites them to a party at her home, where they meet her actor husband, Nick. Bobbi fancies Melissa and Frances is drawn to Nick. Throughout the novel, each moves between relationships and they are continually falling out and being reconciled – they also have quite a lot of sex and drink a lot of alcohol.

The story is told from Frances’ point of view and we also learn about her troubled home life. She is outwardly cold, rude and aloof but she is also insecure, damaged and sensitive. All of the other characters are also damaged in various ways; they lie, cheat and deceive each other. It is their flaws that the writer emphasises most which means that none of them is particularly likeable. The author uses no quotation marks so that it is often difficult to tell when someone is speaking or when the voice belongs to Frances, which I think may well be the point as everything we know is seen from her point of view. I didn’t find this way of presenting dialogue as irritating as I have before, maybe I am getting used to it as more authors adopt this style.

I have read one previous book by this author (see my review of Normal People here) and I didn’t enjoy that particularly either for many of the same reasons. I am well aware that you don’t have to like the characters in a book to engage with it but I failed with this story and I didn’t care at all about what happened to them or who ended up with whom.

Having read and disliked two books by this author I obviously don’t click with her writing, despite the fact that she is very popular, so I will not read any more of her novels and this book will be despatched to the charity shop to find a reader who will appreciate it more than I did.