Welcome to Litsy!

Young, former lovers Frances and Bobbi become entangled with an older, married couple and messiness ensues. I didn‘t like this one as much as Normal People but it was still an enjoyable read if ever so slightly tedious and cliche. Most of the characters were fairly unlikeable but there was also a realistic element to it, especially the modern communication and relationship building.

I swear, I enjoy Sally Rooney's writing and how she conveys physicality and setting so simply yet effectively, but GOD do I want to smack most of her protagonists. Too! Much! Interiority! Serves! No one! #contemporarylit #literaryfiction

My first thought about this book was “I'm going to DNF this“, but after a few pages I found the characters rather interesting, so I kept on reading and hoping. I didn't even make it half-way through the book. Sadly, Rooney makes the same mistakes as many others: the relationship becomes more important than the characters. And so to me the book became more and more dull. And now back to the library it goes.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really loved “Normal People” and enjoyed “Beautiful World, Where Are You”. Rooney‘s writing is sharp, but this one is my least favorite of her novels. I didn‘t really connect with the characters and being in Frances‘ head made me feel a bit detached and depressed.🎧

#AlphabetGame Letter C

This was a 5🌟 read for me. From the. It went downhill between me an Sally Rooney but this one I loved!

Believe It when I say Sally Rooney writes the most real and unlikeable women characters. This is a story about Francis and she living her life on her own terms mostly.

Conversations, an indelible part of our day to day lives. Sometimes free flowing, sometimes rigid and formulaic, sometimes mushy and heartfelt, sometimes cold and calculated, sometimes this, sometimes that. Can something as impulsive as a conversation ever be defined? Is merely "a talk between two or more people" enough? (Also Google, couldn't you find a more laughably simplistic and shallow definition than this?)....(continued in comments)

Unfortunately my least favorite of the three Sally Rooney novels, though I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I‘ve been wanting to dig into the new Hulu adaptation after loving Normal People, so I needed to finish this book first. Similar themes/motifs present in her other novels: characters who can both express themselves beautifully in long discursive conversations and emails but also keep their truest feelings opaque to each other.

Anyone else having trouble getting their conversations in Litsy? That tab never loads for me.

Here 👏 For 👏 It 👏

I just realized I never submitted a review for this and that should probably tell you everything you need to know. It was hard to get through. Like “what‘s the point of this” hard. The characters are foolish & not in an honest, Normal People kind of way. It‘s like you‘re watching them blow up their lives for no reason and THEY DON‘T EVEN CARE

Sending my next therapy bill to Sally Rooney.

I tried it for book club but I dumped the book halfway through and hit up a summary site to know how it ended. Definitely not my jam. Vapid narcissists with the luxury of time and money having to work around their sexual lusting after each other only to end up back with their original partners. The end.

Found a lovely new reading spot this evening to start my reread of this book before the adaptation comes out next week.

UNPOPULAR OPINION 🚨 Conversations With Friends is a better book than Normal People. It‘s a better rendering of intimacy, and the way we perceive ourselves and each other. It‘s more readable and interesting, it‘s more dynamic, and I liked it much better. Maybe I shouldn‘t have been so quick to write off Beautiful World, Where Are You? after all. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/conversations-with-friends-sally-rooney/

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Guess I need to get reading if I want to have it done before the show comes out…
#page2screen

https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/conversations-with-friends-trailer-hulu/amp

I got this book from @Blerdgal_Fenix for #jolabokaflodswap21 and I saved it for a rainy day, which came this weekend. I tend to do that with authors I like, wait on reading their backlist for a while. This novel has a lot of what I like about Sally Rooney, but it feels like a novel told in thirds. ↘️

No one who likes Yeats is capable of human intimacy

sally rooney is the modern day john green (derogatory). pretentious and dry and not a single character is like-able.

Many of you may not know that this is our first holiday season with two boys we hope to adopt next year so of course today was crazy in good ways.

But I wouldn't want to go without thanking @Blerdgal_Fenix for sending me a book I've wanted to read for forever and a fun assortment of chocolates for #jolabokaflodswap21 - thank you so much! And how I loved the darker skin Santas!

Thanks to @MaleficentBookDragon for organizing everyone.

I treated myself to an early-birthday book haul today, sucked in purely by the setting of each- Glasgow, Madrid, Dublin, London...can you tell I'm longing for a big trip? Damn this pandemic (and my finances!)! #BookHaul #NewIn

To say I devoured this audiobook would be an understatement. I love Rooney‘s flawed character-driven writing. #audiostitching

I was very excited to learn there‘s a Sally Rooney novel I havent read yet!

This was one of the most honest and compelling novels I've read in a long time. I loved the mood, the flawed characters, the writing style, just everything. I'll he thinking about this one for a while, I'm sure.

Okay, now that I've had time to read more of this book, I TOTALLY think it heavily inspired Taylor Swift's Folklore album. The love triangle, all the beach references, Florence's cardigan, the heat of the romance having to end after a wine-filled August...and the fact that Taylor wrote a blurb about this book for a magazine in 2019 aaaand Joe Alwyn is playing Nick in the Hulu adaptation. 👀 I'm loving this.

Happy Saturday! I just started this one last night and I really like it. The writing feels hazy and a little rushed, kind of like when you're trying to recount what you did when you were drunk. I mean, there's a lot of wine flowing so it makes sense. 🥴

Lol, ignore my coffee. I got a milk frother and stirred the foam in and it looks really weird now. 😂☕

The book was filled with compelling characters, that continued to evolve through the story. The characters were the driving force of the story. #bookclubreads

Out of three books I've read from Sally Rooney this one is stupidly my favorite lol

-- 5 ⭐️

⭐⭐⭐1/2
I like Rooney's writing style, it's so "casual" but never obvious.. the characters aren't very likeable so I didn't warm to them, but over all it was a good reading for me (and i still think Normal People is a better novel).

This was my #bookspin for October @TheAromaofBooks

Ferrante does the juicy gossipy possessive frenemies story so much better. But Rooney‘s little observational asides, cinematic deflections to dry leaves in the corner or ladybug creeping towards the sugar bowl, create a vivid & intimate sense of place & being. Some “conversations”=gratuitous & threw off pacing. Opening sets up strong sense of discomfort & foreboding. Monogamy, sex, friendship, class, age, deception, ambition, art, alliances. 2017

“Things matter to me more than they do to normal people, I thought. I need to relax and let things go. I should experiment with drugs.”

Been meaning to read this ever since I read Normal People and finished it before her next book comes out today! Great book!

I really enjoyed this book. I couldn't put it down. I must say, I felt many things when reading this. I can't quite articulate them. I can say that the characters are not particularly likeable but I've come to expect that from these types of books. Rooney is great. Depressing, but great.

I mean, I liked this, but it‘s really depression lit.

I‘m obsessed with Rooney‘s casual writing style that oozes unique takes of everyday life. While admittedly the romanticization of such an age-gapped relationship that falls under the category of affair was a tad too much for me, the general message of the book still stands strong. At the end of the day, no one really knows what they‘re doing or the direction they‘re going, and sometimes it‘s okay to just listen to your heart a bit.

This book did nothing to quell my Sally Rooney crush and cemented the peculiar ache I've come to associate with reading her writing. All to say, I loved it!
(In contrast, this photo is called Naps Amongst Nemeses.)

I absolutely love Normal People but put off reading Conversations with Friends. I think I wanted to know I still had a Sally Rooney book to read. But I can read it now that her new novel has been announced. 🙂

She writes such complex and full characters. At times uncomfortable to read but so worth it. Looming forward to Rooney's next novel. 4 🌟

6/10. I don‘t think I really understood it. Quick and entertaining read though!

This was an okay read. What was interesting to me was also reading 'Three Women' by Lisa Tedder at the same time...and that book is about women's sex lives and sexual desires. 'Coversations with Friends' centers around a young woman and her relationships. Reading both books shed a different light on the main character's thoughts, experiences, and feelings. Still, at the end I wasn't impressed with this book. 🤷‍♀️
2 1/2 stars

So I finally got around to reading this, #mounttbr, and I have no clue how I feel about it. Is it a bit navel-gazingly pretentious? Absolutely. Is it a beautiful piece of writing? Absolutely. Did I have strong feelings while reading it? You bet. Can I articulate those strong feelings? Nope. Am I going to pay Sally to f*ck with my feelings again this fall? You know it!

Am I too lazy to take a picture of my book? 💯😂

This book was challenging to me. The main conflict of the MC was something that makes me uncomfortable, because I experienced it from a different perspective. Oddly, the story was still compelling enough to keep me reading and yet, it‘s one that doesn‘t really seem to have an obvious point. Except maybe that it‘s a waste of time to try and figure out anyone else when we can‘t even figure ourselves out first?

Now that my bookspin selections are done, I‘m trying to get my last bookclub book done and get a #bookspinbingo! Tagged book is for bookclub and the others are for bingo. This weekend will definitely help make it a possibility, but I‘ve also been suffering from a pretty severe head cold so rest may have to come first! Thanks @Andrew65 for hosting!
#20in4Readathon

Slowly trying to “catch up”.
I must say I hardly remember that one, only that there was a bit of a plot during the last 2 hours. And it‘s that alone that leads to a “So-So”-rating. I already forgot so much about it and only remember how dragging and boring and blank it was, that the book comes off unscathed by not being a “Pan”.

In there the people are only described to have so strong attitudes and opinions but they lack them. Completely.