Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney Review

I have had enough of Sally Rooney. Many people I respect recommend her very passionately, but after reading Normal People and now Conversations with Friends, I’ve made the executive decision to stop my search for a modicum of relating to the widespread love for her writing and work.

I love character driven stories as much as the next literary fiction fan. But Rooney’s works champion morally horrible, self indulgent, out of touch characters (and not in an interestingly morally gray way) with more than three hundred pages of zero character development, just words for the sake of words. I understand that characters don’t need to be likable for a story to be good. but I need a reason to feel invested in people I spend my countless hours reading about. Rooney’s characters all enable and indulge each others toxic traits and self righteousness, excusing their flaws as being different. but difference for the sake of difference tired me extremely quickly. Perhaps I do not fit into the target audience of lost millennials and young people, who relate or find their little universe of self importance and whining profound. I couldn’t stop thinking, why am I reading every single painfully self centered uninteresting thought going through Frances’ mind, all for not a bit of catharsis by the end. “Rooney is so good at exploring characters’ minds!” but I thoroughly hated the minds she chooses to explore. 

I will admit I found Normal People more interesting and worthy of some merit, because although the characters were equally obnoxious at times, I was able to find certain aspects of Marianne and Connell’s on and off again relationship and their thoughts overall worth reading for. But Frances and Bobbi simply drove me up the wall.