Welcome to Litsy!

⭐⭐This book was about not particularly nice people entangled in awkward relationships.Usually I find these books can be done quite well and keep me engaged throughout with wittiness and banter between the characters, this one just didn't quite hit the mark for me. It gets messy and it stays pretty messy. I found Frances's self centredness to becoming more and more annoying and I just didnt really gel with any of the characters. It was an ok read,

8-9 Apr 24 (audiobook)
Two university students befriend a married couple resulting in some complicated relationships. Seemingly like all Rooney characters, they are intelligent and articulate but totally incapable of discussing their emotions or feelings for each other or anything of real import. Their idea of love is very different to mine. Frances is particularly frustrating.
Yet I enjoy Rooney‘s writing and was compelled to keep listening.

I mostly hated this. I loved Rooney's other 2 books but this one did not sit well with me. Mostly centered around an affair between a handsome actor and a young college girl. I was mildly intrigued by one character's struggle with endometriosis but it was such a disappointingly small part of the story. It's a so-so because it still illicted a strong reaction out of me, even though it was a negative one, so I'm still a fan of her writing 😆

I really liked Rooney‘s debut novel, which I finally got to after reading her newer ones. The characters frustrated me a good amount of the time, but I expected that. There were a few parts that snuck up on me and took my breath away with the realness. And that ending - I loved it.

Read for library's book group, this coming Monday. Some random thoughts:
Why can't people just say what they mean?! 😒 (I know: it's my perennial lament.)
I find that tone of ironic detachment particularly exhausting, and it led to my feeling fed up with every character long before the end.
I'm soooo glad my 20s and 30s are way behind me!
They drink wine like I drink tea.
Oh, FFS!!! 🙄 (re. the final line).
It's done well, but it's not for me.

After Tomorrow, Tomorrow.. I was again in the mood for something contemporary and I turned to Sally Rooney. The thing with her books is: I read and think „but tbh, this is boring“ - and then I think: „but this is life. This is exactly what people are like!“ So yes, lots of points for accurately picturing Life. Nevertheless, it was too long.

#VolumesAndVocals Day 25: #EscapeRupertHolmes - we are in the part where the main characters escaped to Étables France and the affair becomes too intense for comfort. As 21 yo daughter claims while we read aloud: “the audacity!” Paired with strawberry cheesecake while we are in our Abu Dhabi weekend escapade.

#VolumesAndVocals Day 20: #B4HeCheatsCUnderwood - daughter and I are only in the first few chapters in our book club of two as we read aloud to both Snickers and the husband (we are making our reading very audio-book like), but there is a #B4HeCheats vibe to this entire story - am I right? Lols

#VolumesAndVocals Day 19: We are #FeelinGoodNinaSimone as little girl Snickers will be spending the entire summer with us while her Dad vacations in Glasgow, Berlin, Paris, and the US - and daughter and I do a book club of two as we read tagged book for June.

A pair of college friends meet a older couple and their lives become entwined. It‘s an unconventional love story/coming of age story of sorts. Compelling but didn‘t blow me away. Lots to discuss though. I could see it being a great book club choice.

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.

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!