- This is Rooney's first book. It is magnificent. Just as good as her second, Normal People. This review in the Literary Review captures it for me: 'Explores the collective, socially mediated nature of personal affection - we can't help but see people through the prism of their interaction with others...Rendered here with rare skill and subtlety.'
- (Rooney loves the description ‘normal people’ by the way. eg ‘...a genius hidden among normal people’. It crops up regularly).
- Frances’ affair with the married Nick is so well captured in all its emotional complexity and nuance. The texts and emails between them are utterly real, even excruciatingly so.
- I loved the character of Bobbi, Frances' friend and former lover. She has a ferocious and formidable intelligence.
- There are mildly annoying idiosyncrasies. Every time Frances and Nick have sex it always ends with the word ‘Afterwards...’ Every time.
- Another irritation is the constant referring to characters as ‘drunk’. Young people’s inability to be measured in their alcohol intake seems to be a thing in contemporary fiction. They are never ‘slightly inebriated’ or ‘tipsy’. After just a couple of glasses they are ‘drunk’.
- Frances never eats. NEVER! She forgets or ‘isn’t hungry’. This should not be a constant thing. (293: ‘My legs were trembling and I hadn’t eaten a whole meal in days’.)
- Frances’ non-reply to Nick's wife Melissa’s long letter castigating her about the affair is a real disappointment and a narrative weakness. It's an excellent letter and demands a reply but never gets one. There is a rather confronting phone call between them much later in the book however, which is good and narratively necessary.
- Nice appropriate ending.
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