Tag: Sally Rooney

Intermezzo – book review

Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney gives us here an almost perfect story. Five main characters, interlinked, each well rounded and complicated with their own goals and challenges, a set up which could go one of many ways, some deep subplots and an ending all tied up. Sounds a bit contrived, perhaps? There is nothing very experimental, no sweeping poetical passages, nothing clever. No ramping up the heartbeat with triggers and button pushing. It’s just a story of five people. And with that simplicity, it is exceptionally good.

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Beautiful world, where are you — book review

Beautiful world, where are you, by Sally Rooney

Funny how Sally Rooney’s books have such misleading titles. Normal People a case in point. Conversations with Friends. Welcome to Rooney’s beautiful world of normal friends. In this case it comes with a twist at the end — enough to redeem her? I’m not sure.

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Converstations with Friends & Normal People – book reviews

Conversations with Friends and Normal People, by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney is my new discovery. Sure, I’m behind the play on this one, the last two years have seen her plastered with awards. Don’t ask me why she is so good, I find it hard to say why I find the lives of twenty something Irish students and their friends so compelling. They don’t go on adventures or do remarkable things. Their journeys are mostly internal and all about relationships. They’re going through the  pretty mundane stuff of growing up, involving incidents that you’ll probably recognise, things that you or your friends might have struggled with.

The two books are similar, each with the main character a very bright girl at university in Dublin, with family issues pulling her emotional strings and intense friendships. Continue reading “Converstations with Friends & Normal People – book reviews”