Conversations With Friends

 

Summary (from the publisher): 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.

Review: Frances is a college student and aspiring writer whose life is entangled with Bobbi, her best friend and on-and-off lover. The pair meet a journalist named Melissa after performing at a spoken-word poetry event and Frances eventually becomes enamored with her husband, Nick. Frances and Nick have an affair and at the same time, Frances' life and relationships seem to slowly slide out of control. 

While initially seeming to be about Frances' intricate web of relationships, this novel is more about Frances as a young woman straining and struggling to find herself and who she wishes to be. Her career aspirations, sexual interests, and even her physical well being are challenged over the course of the novel, leaving Frances unsteady and adrift. 

It's difficult to like many of the characters in this book. Frances comes across as young and foolish and involved with a married man while befriending and admiring his wife. She is at worst dishonest and at best secretive and conceals a lot of information from quite literally every other character in some way or another. In addition to not particularly liking Frances or Nick, I didn't feel too drawn into the story. It's hard to know what you're rooting for as a reader. It certainly wasn't that she end up with Nick. An interesting character study and coming of age tale of a young woman fighting to find her way but not an especially enjoyable read (or listen in my case as I listened to this on audible). 

Stars: 3

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