Conversations with Friends

The book was completed whilst Rooney was still studying to write and complete her master's degree in American literature.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/24/sally-rooney-conversations-with-friends-interview-salinger-snapchat-generation|title='I have an aversion to failure': Sally Rooney feels the buzz of her debut novel|date=24 May 2017|accessdate=4 June 2018|author=Paula Cocozza|website=The Guardian}} The book was subject to a seven-party auction for the publishing rights. Rights were eventually sold in 12 countries.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/22/debut-novelists-2017-honeyman-underdown-rooney-ellwood-geary-knox-brooks-sudjic|title=Meet the new faces of fiction for 2017|date=22 January 2017|accessdate=4 June 2018|publisher=The Observer}}

The novel was published in June 2017 by Faber and Faber. It was nominated for the 2018 Dylan Thomas Prize{{cite web|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/insight/conversation-sally-rooney-761456|title=Conversations with Authors: Sally Rooney talks to The Bookseller|date=29 March 2018|accessdate=4 June 2018|author=Francesca Pymm|website=The Bookseller}} and the 2018 Folio Prize.{{cite web|url=https://www.rathbonesfolioprize.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/EMBARGOED-Media-Release-Rathbones-Folio-Prize-shortlists-announced-FINAL.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190202041700/https://www.rathbonesfolioprize.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/EMBARGOED-Media-Release-Rathbones-Folio-Prize-shortlists-announced-FINAL.pdf|url-status=usurped|archive-date=2 February 2019|title=Announcing: the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018 Shortlist|date=27 March 2018|accessdate=4 June 2018|website=Folio Prize}}

In Dublin, college students Frances (the narrator) and her best friend and ex-girlfriend Bobbi are noticed by Melissa, an essayist and photographer in her late thirties, when they are performing spoken-word poetry. Melissa invites them home, where they meet her husband, Nick, an actor. Their four lives become increasingly entangled as Frances begins an affair with Nick, and Bobbi and Melissa grow closer.

Conversations with Friends received positive reviews. Overall, critics enjoyed Rooney's prose, clarity, and sharp characters. According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on eleven critic reviews with six being "rave" and four being "positive" and one being "mixed".{{cite web|title=Conversations with Friends|url=https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/conversations-with-friends/|access-date=25 January 2021|website=Book Marks}}{{Cite web |date=2023-10-04 |title=Conversations with Friends|url=https://www.bibliosurf.com/Conversations-entre-amis.html|access-date=2023-10-04 |website=Bibliosurf |language=fr}}

Writing for The New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz praises Rooney, noting that "she writes with a rare, thrilling confidence, in a lucid and exacting style uncluttered with the sort of steroidal imagery and strobe flashes of figurative language that so many dutifully literary novelists employ." Schwartz continues, "one wonderful aspect of Rooney's consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge."{{cite web|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/31/a-new-kind-of-adultery-novel|title=A New Kind of Adultery Novel|date=31 July 2017|accessdate=4 June 2018|author=Alexandra Schwartz|website=The New Yorker}} The Guardian similarly praised the author, noting how "Rooney writes so well of the condition of being a young, gifted but self-destructive woman, both the mentality and physicality of it. She is alert to the invisible bars imprisoning the apparently free."{{Cite web|date=2017-06-01|title=Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney review – young, gifted and self-destructive|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/01/conversations-with-friends-by-sally-rooney-review|access-date=2021-01-26|website=The Guardian}} Reviewing for Slate, Katy Waldman described how "Sally Rooney is a planter of small surprises, sowing them like landmines. They relate to behavior and psychology—characters zigging when you expect them to zag, from passivity to sudden aggression and back."{{Cite news|last=Waldman|first=Katy|date=2017-08-03|title=Tell Me I’m Interesting|work=Slate|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2017/08/sally_rooney_s_conversations_with_friends_reviewed.html|access-date=2021-01-26|issn=1091-2339}} Waldman further applauds the novel, noting that "Rooney herself is acute and sensitive—she may have pinned these fragile creatures to a board, but her eye is not cruel. Bobbi, Frances, Nick, and Melissa excel at endearing banter and hesitant, vulnerable disclosure. They are all thrillingly sharp, hyperverbal."

{{Main article|Conversations with Friends (TV series)}}

After the success of the streaming adaptation of Normal People (2020), based on Rooney's second novel of the same name, Hulu/BBC Three announced their intention to develop a television adaptation of Conversations with Friends. Director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Alice Birch were attached to the project, which was released in May of 2022. The cast includes Alison Oliver as Frances, Sasha Lane as Bobbi, Jemima Kirke as Melissa, and Joe Alwyn as Nick.{{cite web|url=https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a32983438/conversations-with-friends-news-cast-spoilers-date/|title= Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends Is Coming to Hulu—Here's What to Know|website= Harper's Bazaar|accessdate= February 22, 2021}}

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Category:2017 Irish novels

Category:Books by Sally Rooney

Category:2017 debut novels

Category:Irish novels adapted into television shows

Category:Faber & Faber books

Category:Novels set in Ireland