a large collection of various speeches and introductions over the time. can be used as a tool to discover other good writers (i presume they are good since they are getting gaiman’s endorsement). can be skipped if you are not a completionist fan of gaiman’s works.
rooney’s debut novel, but not my first book of hers. like so many others, i discovered “normal people” first, and liked it enough to seek out other works.
“conversations with friends” tried hard at being sincere, and mostly succeeded. what it didn’t do is make me empathise with any of the characters. i felt like a distant observer belonging to a different species reading through a field report.
the story revolves around frances, the narrator, and her relationships with people around. she’s young, confused, and arrogant (the way most young people are), thus all relationships end up incredibly messy. though, is there any other type way of interacting with people? we are messy creatures in the end.
p.s. here goes the usual gripe with cover blurbs. me and some newspapers have wildly different definitions of “funny”. i saw nothing funny in this novel.
opinions about books 