A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.
Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect.As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment.
Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."
I think I was really excited about this because my favourite movie is Conversations With Other Women, so I thought it was obviously going to be just as great, having a similar title.
This was solid. This was good. I ultimately enjoyed this. But I think to an extent, it was also too literary--not that that's necessarily a bad thing--when the storyline could have merited more fun and play to give it some livelihood.
The character relations in this book were golden, and what drove it forward. I found myself really relating to Frances in her general apathetic manner, and the way she kind of simply let life happen, and that was probably what kept me intrigued by and moving through this book.
Ultimately though, I can't think of a good reason why I'd tell my mum or anyone else that they should read this book, and while it was solid and I did ultimately make it through, it was slow without really giving cause for the slowness.
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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