Conversations with Friends
Sally Rooney's 2017 debut introduced the cool, dryly observant register that would define her later novels and a wider style of contemporary literary fiction. Frances and Bobbi, twenty-one-year-old Trinity College students and ex-girlfriends turned best friends, perform spoken word in Dublin and one night meet Melissa, a glamorous photographer in her thirties, who invites them home. Frances begins an affair with Melissa's actor husband Nick, conducted largely over email and instant message, which complicates her relationships, her health, and her ideas about love and class. Rooney narrates in plain unornamented prose that lands with a kind of analytic chill, then gives way at unexpected moments to real tenderness. The book launched her career and was adapted into the 2022 BBC and Hulu series. A foundational text for readers who later devoured Normal People.
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Also by Sally Rooney
What you might want to know about Conversations with Friends
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In Dublin, twenty-one-year-old Frances and her ex-girlfriend Bobbi perform poetry together and become friendly with an older married couple. Frances begins an affair with the husband. Email, irony, and feelings.
Yes. Conversations with Friends was Sally Rooney's debut novel, published in 2017 when she was 26. It established her trademark style of dialogue-heavy literary fiction about young Irish women, sex, and class.
Yes. BBC and Hulu released a 12-episode adaptation in 2022, following Rooney's earlier Normal People series. The show was met with mixed reviews but is generally faithful to the novel.
Conversations with Friends was written by Sally Rooney, published in 2017 by MonoKL.
Conversations with Friends is 321 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Conversations with Friends takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Conversations with Friends is a standalone novel by Sally Rooney, not part of a series.
Conversations with Friends is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
