Conversations with Friends

Well, fuck. Thought I could be like the cool kids and hate this book on principle, really try to understand why someone would say “I'm never reading Sally Rooney” (wouldn't work for me anyway since this is the third I've read from her). But no, I had to go and like the damn thing.

But I promise I didn't like all of it. In fact, if I didn't listen to the first half on audio, I think I would have given up long ago. But it was so compulsively readable, I couldn't put it down or forget about it for long. Another story about the complicated nature that we like to twist relationships into when we're young and inexperienced (though it didn't seem experience helped the older “couple” in this one). There were things I didn't enjoy but those things were the things I wasn't supposed to enjoy - in fact, it hurt to read this book. But Rooney did that whole “wrap-up ending by learning a lesson” that left me happy, and oh she's good.

For those who know better than me, forgive me. I couldn't forsake the flawed characters, inept interactions, and fraught relationships, (their relationship with privilege and money was atrocious and made me roll my eyes, though) because it felt natural The writing definitely felt like I was going back and reading her first work but it's not any less compelling for it.

I'm sorry I can't be a cool kid. Truly. All my love -