Conversations with Friends and Normal People by Sally Rooney - Review

Before reading these books, I had not read any books from Irish authors before. At least, I do not think that I did. Sally Rooney is a modern writer, the way in which she describes the current world is accurate and realistic. In both novels, she created characters that aren't perfect, but flawed. As is everyone. Even though both novels are standalones, Rooney continues her style of writing both books, but also the format of it. Rooney doesn't use quotation marks, something that takes a few pages to get accustomed to. However, when you think about, when speaking we also do not use quotation marks in real life, that is how I view it at least.

Conversations with Friends is Rooney's debut novel, even though I like it less than Normal People, it is a strong debut. Rooney created 4 characters, all with their own backgrounds and personalities, during the novel they get intertwined in each other's relationships. We follow the main character Frances, a student and aspiring writer. Together with her best friend Bobbi, they get to know the married couple, Melissa and Nick. Frances and Nick are attracted to each other, their evolving relationship shows powerplay and a modern view of love.

All characters have strong individual personalities, but all also have traits that I could identify with. Like I said earlier, Rooney created characters with flaws, so she lets them deal with anxiety and stress. Nowadays, we speak more and more openly about these topics, Rooney depicts this in her novel. 

Frances is financially dependent as a student and throughout the novel, she learns to become more dependent on herself. Like so, the people around her force her to look more closely at herself, her own personality and her vulnerabilities. During the story, Frances grows more and more into adulthood and faces the reality of being an adult. 

Normal People focusses on 2 characters: Marianne and Connell, unlike Conversations with Friends, the story takes place in the course of several years. During the novel you see both characters grow up from their teenage life to adulthood. Marianne and Connell develop a special relationship and they always seem to connect with each other. In Normal People Rooney often jumps in time, showing that after months apart the characters always find each other again. Rooney creates a very realistic setting with an even more realistic relationship between 2 people. 

To me, this book felt like reading a future classic, a novel that will be talked about in the future as a novel that depicts the world we now live in. Rooney does this in such a strong way and created characters that seem weird, yet when looking more closely they are so real too. Here too, her characters feel real, their flaws can be resonated with. As is already said by others, but Rooney defines our generation, grown up in a world with technology. 

A strong scene that I found very good was when Marianne and Connell met up for coffee. Not only their conversation was interesting, but the breaks in between were strong too. Rooney lets Connell observe Marianne, but besides that, Rooney adds in breaks where Connoll or Marianne is stirring or sipping their coffee. Breaks that you also find in normal conversation, when the focus is shifted towards something else for a moment. Things like these make the novel powerful and realistic in my opinion. 

Both are contemporary novels that really fit the modern world. Strong yet unusual characters, that I as a reader did resonate with, in certain aspects. I would recommend both of these novels to anyone, describing them as modern classics. 

See you in the next one,

Julia

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