AES102 Conversations with Friends

Conversations with Friends is a novel that follows the life of the narrator/main character named Frances. Frances is 21, and she lives with her ex highschool sweetheart Bobbi, but despite the break up they continue to be best friends in college. They encounter a married couple who are in their mid 30’s named Nick and Melissa. For Frances and Bobbi, Nick and Melissa seem so mature, glamorous, and much more sophisticated. The story continues to follow the journey of those four characters and the sort of interrelationships that develop between them. 

Once again, Sally Rooney did it again. She is one of my favorite writers because she can really write a real story, that is based on the present time, and her writing always hits. Because her story is always so organic and how she writes about love isnt always about a romantic relationship. As someone that believes that platonic and romantic love is equally important, I feel represented by her writing. It also proves that even sometimes platonic love can also be as strong and as vibrant as romantic love. 

I also love how in this book she includes text messages because we need to be honest the internet and our phones are a really big part of friendships and relationships. Adding that element, really made me feel like I knew all of the details of the story. By knowing the details I was really drowning in the story, I was all in the story. 

It show’s how the little things matter, how energy kinda bounces around people, and how your behavior in any shape or form could self continuously affect your social circle. This book really opened my mind to how human relationships are complex, but it doesn't really make it impossible to do things right. Sometimes the hard way is the right way, it's just in our choice of which path we take. 

In one of her interviews, Sally Rooney explained how her approach to love and writing about love was and this is what she said “ I found out that what interested me about these people's lives was love and I don't mean love in a very conventional sort of romantic sense. Like you meet one person who you love and then you love them and that's the end of your love life. it's concluded and you've loved someone so well done and it's sort of if I'm interested in all like you know familiar love, love between friends, and love between siblings love obviously also between and romantic partners. And you know and questioning what is that um the kind of love that's so central to our culture which is monogamous pair-bonded love” (would really recommend watching her interview it feels like its a ted talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqWEiiELzfo) 

This book definitely mentions more mature things, its age rating is between 16-18+. It also talks about a lot of social ideologies like communism and capitalism, which was a bit hard even for me to understand. I had to do a bit of research, but I actually got a new input which is good. It’s also very important to check trigger warnings before reading anything because some topics can be sensitive so some people. 

“Everyone’s always going through something, aren’t they? That’s life, basically. It’s just more and more things to go through.”

― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends 

picture: https://id.pinterest.com/pin/5348093299748680/