Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

5/5 stars

SPOILERS AHEAD

God Sally Rooney really knows how to just rip out my little heart. Normal People was my first introduction to her, and it's one of my top book and one of my favorite tv series I've ever watched. It gives me this strangely nostalgic, despairing feeling that I find myself chasing in new shows and new books. It feels like sitting in a coffee shop completely alone, with a book that you can't stay focused on because you're too wrapped up in your thoughts, while it's absolutely dumping rain outside on a gloomy and yet strangely peaceful day in Ireland (an experience I haven't had but absolutely yearn for). This book finally gave me that same feeling that I'm always looking for. 

Her characters are all so deeply flawed, and I genuinely think that if anyone other than Sally Rooney were to write them, I would absolutely despise them. Somehow, she makes them seem so human and relatable, that even though they're doing despicable things and having these horrible thoughts and feelings, you can't help but be endeared to them too. I can feel the heartache Frances is experiencing and feel her self-deprecating thoughts as if they were my own. I think it's because I've felt so many of the same feelings, even though I've never chosen the same actions. I've never slept with a married man, but I have lived through a depression so deep that you can't get out of bed, and I have gone back to a person who loved something or someone else more than they loved me, and I have compared myself to others in a way that makes it hard to remember who I actually am outside of that, or the mental gymnastics I put myself through thinking about how others view me. Everyone does this to some degree, but it made Frances more relatable and understandable to me even though I obviously disagree with her actions. 

The storyline and way Sally Rooney writes conversation is so natural that it's easy to feel as if it's a conversation I've had before. I feel so deeply for Frances and Nick even though I hate the decisions they're making. I felt the devastation when Nick told Frances he was sleeping with Melissa again, because that only happened as a direct result of Frances making him feel whole again. But on the flipside, I feel terrible for Melissa because her husband is cheating on her with a 21 year old - but is it almost fair since she's had affairs on multiple occasions? I found myself wanting to make excuses for the characters because I loved them on such a personal level, but they were kind of terrible people to each other. I also think a lot of the draw I had to Frances and Nick was that they reminded me of Maryanne and Connell, in that I wanted to shake them both and tell them to just communicate with each other, but I also wanted to give them a hug and tell them it would all be okay. 

One of my favorite things about the way Sally Rooney writes is that time never really feels oppressive. Things happen over days and months and years but it never seems to lag. Time passes organically but it's never dwelled on, so it doesn't seem to drag. It could have happened over a period of weeks, months, or years, but it would have felt natural. I don't know exactly how to describe it, other than it feels like just floating through time. Sometimes days will absolutely drag on in a book and then suddenly a year has gone by and you're wondering how you got there, but that never happens with her writing and I feel myself getting lost reading because it's so easy to fall into.

Typically when an author uses politics or current topics in their books I tend to lose interest, because I read to not think about those things, and often times it just makes me feel a little cringy reading about things that are actually happening in the world and I end up being taken out of the story and back into the horrors of reality. I love the way Sally Rooney does it. It's so intellectual and adds to the characters personalities in a way that would annoy me in any other book, but teaches you a lot about who the characters are on a deeper level.

Maryanne's name popping up as one of their vague friends had me desperately looking for a single crumb of her and Connell being together still, until I realized that this was written 2 years before Normal people even came out. So now I'll probably have to do a reread or re-watch of Normal People (again).

I love that Sally Rooney doesn't tie her stories up in a nice little bow. There's always a door left open for interpretation, and so here is my delusional interpretation of how these character's stories end: Frances and Nick decide to continue their relationship after he picks her up at the end of the book, and eventually he realizes he loves her too much to lose her. He separates from Melissa, because I dislike her character overall and am less concerned about her having a happy ending (does that make me a horrible person?), and he and Frances stay together. Maybe they never get married, but she prides herself on being a bit radical so she doesn't care. A year or so goes by and Frances and Bobbi stay friends, Melissa does some work on herself, and eventually she and Bobbi begin a relationship and they all live happily ever after. I said it was delusional, and so it is but please just let me have this. Sally Rooney would never wrap something up with so much finality, so I'm making it up in my head. 

I honestly can't wait to watch the show now just to cling to the feeling of nostalgia I get from these books.