"Conversations With Friends" by Sally Rooney

This book did for me what the previous book was supposed to do and didn’t. How is it that I can read a book about something painful that I have endured and the book doesn’t touch me, but a book I have nothing in common with does? And how did I identify so strongly with a main character who was so different from me? Maybe she and I had a few characteristics in common. And where we differed, I admired her. Maybe wherever I wasn’t her, I wanted to be her; she may have alienated everyone around her, but she didn’t alienate me. I didn’t envy her life--I would much rather have my life than hers (lucky for me). It did fascinate me, though.

This book tells the story of Frances, a 21-year-old Irish university student, poet, and all-around cold, intimidating and intelligent person (as seen by others)--or someone formless and void, marked more by absence than presence of personality (her own assessment). Frances has a best friend (and former girlfriend) named Bobbi, and the two often perform readings of Frances' poetry. One of their readings is attended by Melissa, a classy photographer and published author, and the three end up forming an odd friendship. And the rest is just too exhausting to summarize.

I find myself wondering, how does this book differ from Women’s Fiction--or its slightly more fluffy sister, Chick Lit--which I tend to scorn? (Look at that cover. This LOOKS like Women's Fiction.) Take Me Before You, for example. I felt nothing for that book, and as a result I wondered if maybe I wasn’t human. But this book made me feel more human than human.

I haven't done this book justice. I feel like it's one that will stick with me. Not necessarily in the details, which are always difficult for a literary amnesiac to hang on to, but for the sweeping sensation it left me with . . . swept away? swept up? swept out?