Conversations with Friends (Actually, Though)

Here we go again. Suburban Elitist dissects Sally Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations with Friends, expressing a wide-range of feelings about the book.

Spoilers, of course. Rooney fans beware!

Shannon: Okay, let’s be silly

Caroline: Sally Rooney, welcome to your fourth rotation - it’s about to be your floor routine.

Shannon: Sally Rooney is my thirteenth reason

Julie: Sally Rooney, welcome to your tape

Caroline: She would eat us alive

Shea: She would absolutely eat us alive

Julie: Actually, I’m the only one advocating for you in this tape, so be grateful, Sally.

Shannon: I love Normal People, Sally

Shannon: (to hypothetical Sally Rooney) Please don’t sic Karl Marx onto me

Caroline: (quoting Shiva Baby) I mean I don’t really want to be a girlboss...

Shannon: (continuing the line) ..but if that’s what you’re into

Julie: (correcting the line) but that’s very cool that that’s what you do

Shannon: I’m actually... a girlboss... that’s feral

Caroline: parentheses feral

Julie: (to Shannon) That was a really inquisitive way.. you were like.. I’m actually… a girlboss.. That’s feral…

Shea: Today we’ll be discussing Conversations with Friends written by Sally Rooney..

Julie: We’re having a conversation with our friends about Conversations with Friends

Shannon: But we’re actually having a conversation with our friends we’re not..

Caroline: Yes, we’re actually friends

Shannon: We’re not just pretending to have a conservation but actually shallow for 300 pages, okur

Julie: See, when you say these things… it hurts me

Shannon: Did any of the characters have any real conservation and depack their trauma? No!

Caroline: We have to preface that when we attack Frances, we’re not attacking Julie

Julie: But it does feel that way though!

Shea: And that’s something that we need to unpack!

Caroline: (to Shannon) Remember when you said we need to use the word attack more last week?

Julie: I just think that we need to admit that we can be bad, horrible, shallow people too.

Caroline: Absolutely.

Shea: Okay, well if you would have just let me get to my notes…

Shannon: Julie, tell the people your thoughts on Conversations with Friends, because I feel like yours are the most individual

Julie: Okay well I gave it five stars, but the context of when I was on train back to Florence from Pisa (because did you know I studied abroad?).

Shea: Julie just got cancelled

Caroline: (quoting Booksmart, said with emphatic ‘th’) In Barcelona

Shannon: If you didn’t know, Julie literally studied abroad

(We all start to hold hands. Shannon tries to take a photo. Shannon snaps at Julie for not holding her hand.)

Caroline: (quoting Las Culturistas) Podcasts are famously a visual medium

Julie: So true

Julie: Okay, the context.. I was on a train and my roommates had just texted me something annoying and vile and I was pissed at them

Caroline: Say their names! First and Last!

Shannon: Drop their socials! And by that I mean security!

Shea: We’ll bully them!

Julie: I’m not going to say their names because.. I don’t want to be bitter! But huge bitchery was happening!

Caroline: Huge! And that’s huge for you!

Julie: And I started reading this book… Look, all I have to do on this train ride is read this book. I’m pissed at everyone else and I’m gonna read it. And then it carried into the next day where I was like ‘all I want to do is read this book,’ so I finished it that day. This was also a period in my life where I was listening exclusively to Phoebe Bridgers. So that is context

Shea: Big sad girl context

Shannon: (to Julie) And you see yourself in Frances

Julie: I do see myself in Frances

Shannon: Which some of us find concerning

Julie: I don’t see myself as Frances particularly, but I don't see myself as the best part of any protagonist if that makes sense. She reflects bad parts of myself to me and I was like ‘I feel you, girly,’ because I’ve done that, I’ve thought that.

Caroline: Which one of those things have you done?

Shannon: Have you slept with a married man?

Julie: I haven’t slept with a married man.

Caroline: Yet

Shea: Yet

Julie: Even though I am famously in my dilf era

Shannon: Have you had a pregnancy scare?

Julie: I have not had a pregnancy scare

Shannon and Shea: Yet

Shea: No, but I get it

Julie: Yeah, I’m just saying that she reflects what being 21 is and we are all annoying pretentious, and shallow. And if we can’t look inside of ourselves and see that and have compassion for her as a character, because she reflects us then what are we doing!?

Shannon: I think I’m none of those things

Shea: Yeah, I think I’m perfect actually

Shannon: Even though I do label myself as a narcissist

Julie: And that’s why people don’t like her, because they reflect the reader back to themselves in a way they don’t like to be seen. Because you can clearly see how insecure and annoying she is. How selfish she is.

Shea: I don’t really agree that that’s why I didn’t like her

Shannon: That’s not why I didn’t like the book

Julie: Well, no there are other things

Shea: But that is why I connected with her in her insecurity about certain things, her anxiety about certain things I did agree with, however sometimes it was like ‘babes you’re doing the wrong thing.’

Shannon: Yeah, I definitely connected with Frances when she was like ‘hm I graduate next year what the freak am I supposed to do’?

Caroline: And she was like ‘ I don’t know jobs’

Shannon: See “I’m 21; I Want to be Everything and Nothing” written by Shannon Huurman

Julie: Self-plug

Shannon: I feel no shame

Caroline: Frances was like: ‘Other people get jobs, I don’t need one’

Shannon: ‘I don’t need jobs’ Me? I don’t dream of labor, okay!

Caroline: Her whole personality is ‘I don’t like money’

Julie: But she is also very insecure about money because Bobbi’s family is rich and wealthy, and she’s hanging around Melissa and Nick who are wealthy and she does not come from a wealthy background.

Shea: That’s why I really liked her, because I related to that aspect and so I was like ‘ yes, queen I want you to talk more about this,’ but no, we’re talking more about nothing that I actually want to care about or listen to. Sorry, Sally.

Caroline: I think that cognitive dissonance of like having these values of like liberal values but like also being a pretentious idiot is supposed to be satire of being in your early 20s. But at the same time it was like… I can’t read another one of these sentences.

Shannon: It was funny and ironic at first and then every single time Nick was like ‘I hate money. I hate people who have two houses’ while he’s in his second house…

Julie: While they’re in France

Caroline: (quoting the book) Nobody should have vacation houses! Nobody!

Shannon: Yeah, maybe we pump the brakes on the Marxism.

Shea: The thing I liked about Frances is she does pride herself on her smarts, on her knowledge, on being the smartest person in the room. But it was hard at some point where she was obviously inexperienced. But I related that I know everything and I know nothing.

Caroline: Also, I hate the nonchalant intellectualism in that it’s like ‘I effortlessly got an award and Oh my God, am I top of the class? That's so embarrassing.’

Shea: ‘I didn’t even try’

Caroline: And that is a Sally Rooneyism of being Trinity University, top of the class

Shannon: English Major

Caroline: Every character!

Shannon: Sally hates dumb people

Julie: She does

Caroline: She’s elitist

Shannon: Sally, respect for dumb people, okay?

Shea: It’s just Julie as a person hunts and pecks for the things she likes in the characters... I do that with love interests in books all the time. They never actually look at what the author says.

Shannon: So true

Caroline: With Fangirl you have to not follow the character traits

Julie: They always have to write them as like ugly, they’re so hot then there’s one thing about them that’s ugly

Caroline: (about Fangirl’s romantic love interest, Levi) Blonde! Widow’s peak!

Shea: The widow’s peak is mentioned like -

Shannon: Many times! His widow’s peak is his defining feature

Julie: But it’s never like that sharp..

Caroline: Widow’s peak is fine, but it’s the receding hairline!

Shannon: Okay, this is not a Fangirl discussion but if you want to talk about Fangirl we can!

Julie: Speaking of receding hairlines… I’m so sorry, but the guy in the Gossip Girl reboot!

Shea: YES

Shannon: He has one? Nooooooo

Julie: You guys cannot be 16 with receding hairlines

Shea: Dropping names! Now go!

Shannon: We’re dropping names.. [redacted]… we’re gonna block that one out.. On the count of three we’re going to say someone you know with a receding hairline in high school.. 1..2..3

Shannon and Julie: [redacted]

Caroline and Shea: [redacted]

Shannon: [redacted]![redacted]! (covers mouth)

Julie: No, he does though, but you know what? We know he doesn’t read Suburban Elitist.

Shannon: We know he doesn’t read it. None of my friends that are men do !

Caroline: Every man ever is illiterate

Shannon: Every man I’m friends with is illiterate and does not subscribe so...

Julie: We have to cut some of that…

Shannon: No, keep that in. I want them to send this specifically to them.

Caroline: Okay, if we want to move on to another character. I want to say one thing about Frances... that Sally Rooney does is that she is fatphobic. I will have to say that.

Julie: Yeah..

Caroline: This is a sentence she wrote about Frances, she’s described as “so extremely thin in an interesting way.” Queen, none of your characters eat and it’s problematic!

Shannon: Wait Frances said that or that’s how she described Frances?

Caroline: The character looked in the mirror and thought ‘I think I’m really thin but in an interesting way.’

Shea: Which is big tumblr ED

Shannon: Yes, like cool to be skinny

Julie: And that’s the Sally Rooneyism that I hunt and peck and leave out

Caroline: It’s so messed up! Even in that New Yorker excerpt [of her new book] the character went to lunch and just had a coffee.

Julie: Yeah, her characters are perpetually not eating

Shannon: Hashtag write a feast. Sally Rooney, if you’re reading these I challenge you to write a Thanksgiving dinner!

Shea: Not in an Irish book! That doesn’t make sense!

Julie: The pilgrims! Eat a mashed potato, Sally!

Shannon: No, I want you to write a meal where all the characters feel so full at the end that they need to take a walk.

Julie: Like pull an Ottessa ​​Moshfegh!

Shannon: Yes!

Caroline: Sally’s book does feel like you haven’t eaten all day when you finish it. You feel empty inside. You feel weak. You feel pallid

Julie: Well, it’s because her books have crack in them, so you can’t read them in like a week you have to read them in like one day

Shannon: I felt the crack in Normal People, but I didn’t feel the crack in this one. This took some perseverance to get through. I think it’s because I loved Connell so much and I couldn’t care less for Nick.

Julie: Someone else was writing Connell and Sally was writing Marianne. Someone ghost-wrote Connell and that’s all I have to say.

Shea: I said this to Carol once, but my relationship with Conservations with Friends is the same relationship I have with the show Girls (that Lena Dunham show).

Caroline: THAT Lena Dunham show

Julie: You are in love

Shea: Because there are aspects of it which I loved and I think about sometimes rewatching the show to see if I was just critical. There are more things to love but also there are things I can’t relive that. I can’t watch Lena Dunham and Adam Driver do will-they-won’t-they for so long. It’s the same thing that the characters are so flawed and terrible…

Caroline: Fllllopppps

Shea: You hate all the characters and you want to bully them but then you’re like ‘I want to see Aidy Bryant at the end’ you know? It’s that same sort of energy

Shannon: Love to hate them, yeah

Caroline: I tried to re-read Conversations with Friends in order to prepare twenty pages of notes on why it's a flaming hot piece of garbage with specifics, but I couldn’t do it.

Shea: A flaming hot piece of garbage you gave 3 stars to

Julie: Be a big girl and change your rating

Shannon: Be a big girl and don’t be afraid to give something one star

Julie: For it to reflect the flaming hot piece of garbage

Shea: She’s calling you a small girl

Caroline: Here’s the thing, I do up my hatred for this book for dramatic play.

Julie: I know and that’s why I challenged you

Shea: Way to to open up the curtain

Caroline: The actual experience of reading it is a 3 star because it is compelling, because she writes like fanfiction! She describes the outfits! She writes in simple sentence structures...

Shea : (jokingly) women are annoying

Caroline: (faux eye-roll) Women are so annoying

Shea: I’m annoying

Shannon: I’m annoying

Caroline: Let’s say the most annoying thing about us!

Shannon: On the count of 3, say your biggest flaw...1,2,3… I’m a narcissist! Anyone else?

Shea: I didn’t bring those notes today

Caroline: I actually do have a similar flaw as Frances and it’s very Ravenclaw. Sometimes, I’d rather be right than be kind.

Julie: You wrote that in your review.

Caroline: I did write that about in my review.

Shannon: Julie?

Julie: I think I can be really mean.

Caroline (exasperated): I think I can be so mean

Shea: Me too, babes

Shannon: I think I can be so mean, only to Julie, though

Julie: I feel like I’m a mean person

Caroline: I don’t think you’re a mean person

Shea: I’m very loud which dominates a lot. Like in general, I will talk over people and grab the spotlight from people a lot.

Caroline: I don’t think you do that.

Julie: You don’t though

Shannon: You don’t

Shea: Really?

Julie: It’s because you’re so aware of it

Caroline: No, it’s valid that you feel that way but

Shea: In my head

Julie: (signing Lorde) In my head, I do everything right

Julie: I feel that you’re so aware of it that you don’t actually do that

Shea: But it’s like I’m so aware that sometimes when I do it it’s like… ‘I’m going to run away’

Shannon: See, if only Frances and Bobbi had a single conversation like the one we just had! Admit to one flaw Bobbi, I dare you!

Caroline: That’s what really bugs me— there’s no sign of growth in Frances. She literally doesn’t learn

Julie: I think there is

Shannon: There’s not, see last line

Caroline: Come and get me, bitch

Julie: She does this really annoying pseudo- intellectual paragraph right before the last line which I hate actually

Caroline: I hate that paragraph

Julie: But I think it shows how in the beginning she does intectuallize her feelings and she does choose intellect over kindness. But in the end, it’s not like she’s being kind but she decides to let that go a little bit after going back and talking with her mom, getting her endometriosis diagnosis...

Caroline: Best plot line, endometriosis

Shannon: Carol stans endometriosis

Julie: Yes, she’s making a mistake by going back to Nick, but she’s not doing it in a ‘I’m so cool and intellectual way’ she’s like doing it in a ‘I’m recognizing that I do have feelings for you and I am just going to let that be that way’ which she would not have done before

Shea: That’s not better

Caroline: It’s not different

Shannon: I don’t with agree that

Caroline: She’s making the same choice

Julie: But in a different way

Shea: For different reasons but

Julie: For different reasons!

Shea: That being said she’s still...

Caroline: ...Someone you can’t trust

Shannon: ...Letting herself get used

Julie: It was never about her becoming a person that could be trusted. It was never about her becoming this five star person.

Caroline: I’m not saying five star; I’m saying two star

Julie: I don’t care if she’s a good person at the end or not

Shannon: Then what is the point of her going through it all?

Caroline: It’s so postmodern

Shea: The lack of growth in her shows the lack of growth in Nick (in my opinion) which shows that no one in this book goes anywhere. I understand not every book someone has to learn, has to grow but in this situation where there is an affair and that is the book then I want to see growth.

Caroline: That’s also the point of a coming of age

Julie: I don’t think this is a coming of age

Caroline: It's an anti-coming-of-age because she doesn’t come to anything! Except..

Shea: Don’t even get me started

Julie: Dot dot dot

Shannon: I would have been more okay with her not learning anything if she and Nick had never really separated, but then it was like screw it, ‘ come and get me.’ Like you’ve done the work!

Shea: My biggest flaw with the book was that I thought that the whole book was going to be like that both Frances and Bobbi were having these affairs separately. But because you could only see through Frances’ eyes you don’t see Bobbi, so I thought the final line was going to have Bobbi reveal that she had been sleeping with Melissa this whole time. So the “conversations with friends” part is that you have all these conversations, but you’re not listening and not paying attention so you miss out on a whole part of their life. But when that wasn’t the book I was really upset!

Caroline: Because you wrote it better!

Shea: I did that. I’m sorry, Sally

Caroline: And you didn’t need to go to Trinity University to write that

Shannon: Trinity University ain’t shit

Shea: Exactly

Julie: Find a new setting

Shannon: This is challenge number 2, Sally: write a book not set in Trinity

Julie: Is her next book?

Caroline: Yes, well they all graduated from there

Shea: Oh, flops

Julie: Of course

Shea: I just thought the growth was going to be in the friendship. At the end, she like lets Bobbi take care of her and fill that void of friendship. But because they dated they’re all complicated

Shannon: Yes, the Bobbi/ Frances relationship honestly bugged me more than Nick and France's relationship, because it was so uncomfortable that they used to date and it felt like Francis never got closure.

Shea: They never talk about why they broke up

Shannon: Just that Bobbi broke up with her. But it felt like Bobbi wanted a chokehold on Frances..

Caroline: Because Bobbi made all of the choices for her. Even when it is not Frances who says she is bisexual but Bobbi says ‘ Frances is bisexual.’

Shanon: It just feels like Frances never had the opportunity to say what she wanted to be, who she wanted to be. Did she even want to be in that relationship with Bobbi?

Caroline: That’s what bugs me about the relationship with Nick is that he is just the second person that she has liked at all. Even had an ounce of emotion for and immediately is like ‘let’s get in a relationship’

Shannon: Let's play!

Shea: I also think that the story she wrote about Bobbi hurts Bobbi’s feelings when Frances thinks she is saying ‘this is why I love Bobbi.’ Yet Bobbi reads it like ‘ oh, you see me as a domineering person that takes over all of you. This isn’t love.’ But Frances is like I didn’t see that.

Julie: I would like to bring something up on the Bobbi and Frances relationship. Frances makes a comment to Bobbi after Bobbi asks about Frances and Nick.. like Frances is like ‘are you jealous?’ in a playful but Bobbi is hurt by it and sends this email back like ‘That was so messed up of you. Do you really rank our relationship below your passing sexual interest in some middle-aged married guy.’ Frances is like ‘oh my god.’

Caroline: Frances is like the answer is yes. Final answer

Julie: Frances says “of course Bobbi was right. I had called her jealous to try to hurt her but I just hadn’t know that it actually work or that it was even possible to hurt her no matter how hard I tried

Caroline: But Frances thinks so low of herself that she doesn’t think she affects people

Julie: But she sees Bobbi as this person that she isn’t, like this invincible, anything-will-roll-off her-back type of person.

Caroline: That’s dehumanizing her

Julie: It is

Shea: But also for that to be your best friend...

Shannon: For you not even to really know your best friends..

Julie: She also doesn’t really have any other friends and that’s why she can sort of fall into Nick..

Julie: Frances feels like she is the Nick of her and Bobbi’s relationship

Caroline: And they got left in one room together

Julie: Yes, because she can’t connect with people, so when she finds one person she vaguely connects with…

Shea: That’s why so much of the relationship is her just projecting onto him. Nick really is just a cardboard cut-out for women to just to say ‘ this is what I think of you’ and Nick is like ‘okay.’

Shannon: Like what do we really know about Nick that wasn’t just Frances just telling us her dreams?

Caroline: That first scene where he’s like cutting up bell peppers in the kitchen. Does he have the capacity to chop up peppers?

Shea: He’s domestic!

Caroline: He does bad regional plays as well

Shannon: He’s a bad actor!

Shea: I wanted to talk about Nick’s mental health issues in that he was very similar to Frances in that he just let things happen to him. And as I wrote in my notes, he should have taken more responsibility. Yes, they did have this connection according to the book, but he had so many signs that she was so young and in a way taking advantage of her and she just wasn’t aware of that

Caroline: She thought she was above it

Shea: She thought her youth and the mystery of their relationship was power in her eyes. But instead Nick’s secret gave him the power, and Frances starts to realize that in the book. But Nick just doesn’t do it well; he just sort of tells Melissa and then Melissa goes off. Love that queen, will write you a love letter to her, but I just feel like Nick should have realized how young she is.. And reading the book made me realize how young we are, like we are also 21 and if any of us got into a relationship with a 35 year old married man at this point like ‘no.’

Caroline: We would not be blasting “illicit affairs” by Taylor Swift, okay? We would not be doing that.

Shea: It’s just a childish thing to do. Frances just thinks it's going to be a fun little rendezvous moment, but it really messes with her and she really does cling onto Nick because she has daddy issues

Shannon: It’s that sneaky trauma

Shea: Sorry, that was my rant on Nick. I guess I just have to make the man take more responsibility.

Caroline: He’s also the senior party

Shea: The power dynamic… he was 35

Caroline: Also richer, every dynamic

Shea: It made me so uncomfortable, personally, when she had to ask for money. Or she didn’t even ask what he offered. But you also realize you are trading now money for sex!

Caroline: Yet she is like ‘best sex I’ve ever had’ like girlllll

Caroline: Sally Rooney’s prose with the copious use of ‘inside’ made me upset

Julie: Another Sally Rooney staple is crying after sex

Caroline: Everytime

Julie: That is when you have to say ‘they are not okay, I am not going to continue this relationship’

Shannon: Right, like get help

Caroline: It’s just like they’re not having fun in there

Shea: Even though Frances is out here saying ‘He touched me and it was the best sex I’ve ever had.’ No, you’re lying

Shannon: Bare necessities, bestie

Shea: Literally, you can’t have good sex without communication. Like conversations with friends!

Julie: She doesn’t have friends

Shannon: Maybe that’s her problem that she need a friend not a relationship

Caroline: She doesn’t have friends; she has achievements! She’s a girlboss!

Shea: SO true

Shannon: But she doesn’t have achievements

Caroline: I know

Julie: ‘I only rely on my achievements, but I don’t have any and I won’t work for any, so where does that leave me?’

Caroline: Now, to Melissa. The first thing said about Melissa is quote “She wrote a famous essay about the Oscars…” How does one write a famous essay about the Oscars?

Shea: Without me falling in love with her

Julie: It was like a critical essay criticizing the Academy

Caroline: (exasperated) Some random Irish lady writes a critical essay about the Oscars? And it’s quote-unquote famous? Like no, you can’t

Shannon: It’s camp

Julie: And it’s brought around every year

Caroline: That is where we get to point where Sally Rooney has a fundamental misunderstanding of how pop culture works

Shea: Yeah, I agree

Caroline tosses her notes across the room.

Julie: Yeah, she is not involved which is now ironic that her books are now so entrenched in pop culture

Caroline: In the zeitgeist!

Shannon: It goes against everything that Sally Rooney wants

Julie: It does!

Shannon: I don’t understand how she could want to be a famous author and have the beliefs she has

Julie: But she believes that she doesn't want to be a famous author

Caroline: She believes that love cannot exist under capitalism and then makes a hit Hulu miniseries and writes another book!

Julie: With a great love story! With a great couple!

Caroline: Are they a great couple?

Shannon: Yeah! That’s a couple that grows

Caroline: Do they grow? But Shea wanted to talk about being a Melissa stan!

Shea: Yes! Let’s see what I wrote about her

Caroline: An actual girlboss

Shea: I wrote: ‘obsessed. Period.’ Not perfect but chaotic!’ And also THAT EMAIL! I loved that email… also the casting of Melissa is the Girls thread of it all because the actress played one of my favorite, similar characters on Girls. A very chaotic, free-spirit type. She actually ends up with Adam Driver.. Very interesting. But the email sent me over because if my husband that I literally did not think of had an affair…

Caroline: When I just thought he could cut bell peppers

Shea: An affair with a 21 year old I would do the exact same email but she was like ‘I just want you to know: 1. That this literally is not going anywhere, because he will stay with me. So I hope you know that, not to be rude sister. 2. She sort of asks these questions of does he laugh at the same things? Does he point out the same things? Does he like to sit and talk with you or does he like to watch movies?

Caroline: Does he get deja vu when he’s with you?

Shea: Literally, she’s asking these questions to see if they’re are having the same relationship to determine if it is a proper affair or just just sex or a deeper questions. She asks all the right questions that I would want to know if my husband who I did not think of had an affair.

Caroline: Frances says ‘I don’t know.’

Shea: But at the end of the email Melissa is like ‘but let’s get lunch.” And I loooove that. The chaos of it! She does not care because she is like ‘what are you going to do, leave me?’ because she is the breadwinner!

Shannon: ‘Aw, Nick thinks he can leave me? Cute!’

Julie: He was never going to leave Melissa

Shea: But also Frances is catching Nick and Melissa at just the right time where he is just beginning to recover from his stay at the mental hospital, so when he is with Frances getting that glow back. Melissa thinks he is doing better. That’s so hard, because a 21 year woman was hyping him up telling him he was hot.

Caroline: But can’t you just picture their Architectural Digest tour where Melissa is like: ‘ hey AD, welcome to my home!’

Shea: ‘We have separate rooms!”

Caroline: ‘And this sculpture is by a Japanese artist... I don’t remember the name, but like it is Japanese. Don’t you love this piece, babe? Babe, always cuts peppers in the kitchen.’

Shea: ‘the kitchen is really Nick’s area.’’

Julie: She would not call him babe

Caroline: Yes, she would, on camera.

Julie: No

Caroline: Not in the bedroom

Shea: What bedroom? Which one? Which bedroom?

Caroline: Then she would try to make these coy jokes about how ‘ oh, I always have these fresh cut flowers on the table; they’re not just here for you.’ In the end, Sally Rooney writes sterile prose and will keep turning out these books about the same people…

Shea: With zero quotation marks

Caroline: But I will keep reading with and buying them from Barnes and Noble the week they come out and they give it to Half Price Books a few months later.

Shea: And I’ll keep buying them from Half Price Books a year after y’all read them or I’ll just borrow Shannon’s copy

Caroline: And they will all have really intriguing titles that have nothing to do with the book.. except Normal People, great title

Shannon: In the end, I still love Normal People, but I didn't like Conversations with Friends as much. I’m hopeful for Beautiful World Where are You? because I think I’ll like the characters more based upon uncarley’s video.

Shea: The casting for Conversations with Friends I’m very into though

Julie: I’m sorry, but I have not seen more perfect casting

Caroline: He just has to be a body in a scene

Julie: He’s perfect

Caroline: I don’t want to see him have sex though…

Shannon: No, it will feel like watching dad cheat on mom.. Watching step dad cheat on mom

Caroline: But Taylor is going to be on her socials like: ‘ Oh my God! Yasss!’ about the show though

Shannon: It’s definitely going to do things for his career

Shannon: Okay, let’s wrap it up

Julie: My final thoughts are… although she does have sterile prose, sometimes the sentences… they work and it’s beautiful

Shannon: But it is becoming something for the locals, sorry

Shea: Sorry, babes

Julie: Why are you saying sorry to me?

Shannon: I’m not, I’m saying sorry to the general club

Julie: If you learned to read from Tik Tok, that’s your problem

Shannon: Not me reading a Book Tok book right now

Shannon: Sally Rooney, I will keep giving you my coin even though you don’t believe in money and that is the point of this.

Shannon: And we are going to keep giving you our money and be poor in our capitalist society so you can be rich in a society that you do not even believe in

Julie: You know what I want to say? As much as she would never want to admit it, she is a girlboss.

Shannon and Shea: Yeah!

Julie: I’m sorry having both of your novels turn into miniseries..

Julie and Shannon: That’s girlboss!

Julie: And you know what? She needs to hear it, internalize, and think about that

Shea: Think about THAT

Shannon: I need to see Sally Rooney go to therapy, please

Julie: Think about it, love

Shea (irish accent): Just tink about these tings

Caroline: Sally Rooney, get some adverbs

All: Byeeee