For most of the novel, it’s easy to forget that Frances, the protagonist and narrator of Sally Rooney’s CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS, is a college student. She spends more time and emotional energy on her various relationship woes than she does on reading MIDDLEMARCH for her English course, for example. But perhaps, in retrospect, this is entirely in keeping with how actual college students think. Certainly Frances is working just as hard to define herself as an adult through her relationships as she is to graduate and find gainful employment.

"CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS recognizes the often treacherous landscape of emotions and relationships traversed by today’s young people --- a world in which identities are fluid and labels are passé, but nevertheless leave them struggling to define their place in the world."

Frances’ real passion is for writing; she is the author of the spoken word poetry that she and her partner Bobbi (actually, mostly just Bobbi) perform at various venues around Dublin. Frances and Bobbi used to be romantic girlfriends rather than just artistic partners and best friends, but they have broken up recently at the novel’s opening. That’s when Bobbi and Frances meet Melissa, a sophisticated journalist in her mid-30s, who has decided to write a magazine profile of this artistic duo. As their professional contact with Melissa becomes more extensive and personal, they also eventually meet Melissa’s actor husband Nick.

Frances is, somewhat to her own surprise, immediately drawn to Nick, while Bobbi and Melissa seem to form their own mutual connection. Frances is largely unsure about whether her attraction to Nick is reciprocated, but at Melissa’s birthday party, she discovers that it is, and the two of them spend the remainder of the book deciding how far to take their affair --- and who to tell about it.

Meanwhile, Frances is dealing with two other issues, mostly on her own: her father’s alcoholism appears to be growing worse, and she is experiencing her own health issues, with scary and painful symptoms that she doesn’t want to discuss with anyone. At the same time, her burgeoning relationship with Nick both confuses and complicates her longtime friendship with Bobbi, who fails to understand her attraction to a man, let alone one who is more than a decade older.

Debut novelist Sally Rooney knows of what she writes. Barely older than her protagonist, she clearly understands the conflicted, often rudderless feelings of young people about to embark on adult life. Some readers may find Frances’ interiority, not to mention her conversations with Nick, to be strangely emotionally sterile; even when characters are fighting, it’s difficult to discern true anger or ardor. But this carefully controlled narrative voice is also fascinating, as readers work to read between the lines of Frances’ narration to discern the pain and passion within.

CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS recognizes the often treacherous landscape of emotions and relationships traversed by today’s young people --- a world in which identities are fluid and labels are passé, but nevertheless leave them struggling to define their place in the world.