to think that Sally Rooney and her mates must be really bloody boring company? NO SPOILERS PLEASE

[PorkySisyphus]

Am currently 10 eps into Coversations With Friends.

How are all of her characters so interminably navel-gazey, muttery and downright boring? Her lead females especially. Jesus, this new one is the drippiest drip that ever dripped.

And the love interest? Eurgh. All the charisma of a lumpy bowl of yesterday's porridge. He also looks like Zach from Gilmore Girls if he were a try hard actor (emphasis on the or) which is tickling me every time he comes on screen.

I'm Irish. I'm not young and have zero experience of Dublin uni life. If these shows are reflective of it then I'm pretty glad about that.

QUB circa 1999 was much better craic with actual parties and fun and people not living in phone-glued-to-hand, frumpy jumper clad perma-misery over their own shitty relationship choices.

Its all so bloody draining and avoidable.

I know I can just not watch but I'm sick and need distraction.

Also it's my birthday but I can't eat. Please send virtual cake.

Happy Birthday!
why oh why can’t you eat 👀

I think SR is quite over rated tbh
i found ordinary people quite a dull
book

im from an Irish family and the whole naval gazing thing seems alien to me.

Normal People was one of the most tiresome books I’ve ever read. I don’t get the appeal of reading about arrogant bores proudly living in the mundane

Jeez so agree with you! I lasted all of 5 minutes. Utter shite

Yes, I find all her books like this- so static and full of characters who are stuck in patterns of meaningless and self-absorbed over-analysis.

Being generous, it’s quite clever how she makes the experience of reading the book (or watching an adaptation) stand for the experience of being a certain sort of millennial at the start of the twenty-first century- the lack of forward momentum, the frustrated search for meaning or enjoyment. It’s not half boring for the reader or viewer though.

Have you read the books? They translate oddly to tv because there’s no internal narratives at all, you only see what the characters are doing (not much) rather than how they think/feel, which is mostly what the books consist of - so I agree you end up with what seem like dull characters. Frances is a really well-developed character in the book. Also, they try and make everything too beautiful on tv which takes away from the story I think. Nick and Melissa are not well cast IMO - apart from anything else, the age difference between them and the girls isn’t really visible, plus Joe Alwyn just isn’t Nick.

I didn't really rate Normal People either. I have read the book and watched the TV series. I found the male lead character intensely irritating and just couldn't relate to the girl at all.

I quite enjoyed it but the way you wrote about it made me LOL. And the people are wankers.

There's a thread here where it's being discussed but without spoilers so a bit difficult.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/4550624-conversations-with-friends-no-spoilers-bbc?reply=117289349

I agree that in both NP and CWF the characters are all pretty unlikeable, all need counselling and have too much time on their hands. Sally Rooney likes a dysfunctional family too.
Plus the no speech marks thing in the books-what's that about?

The popularity of Sally Rooney makes me lose faith in the reading public.

So dull.

She's an anti-Semite too, which only makes matters worse.

Plus the no speech marks thing in the books-what's that about?

I had forgotten about that. I thought it rather pretentious. In fact that is what I disliked about Normal People - the pretentious self absorbed characters.

Yes they are dull books. I gave up both of them and have swerved the tv shows.

I liked Normal People but gave up on this new one after a couple of episodes. DULL DULL DULL

Oh God she and her books are so tiresome. I then had a moment where I thought, maybe that’s the point? That modern life for that age is actually dull and tiresome and navel gazey? If they are so full of ennui at that age there’ll be some cracking mid life crises later on!

I remember reading the Edna O’Brien books when I was in Uni and being transfixed by them - Sally Rooney pales in comparison.

Read both and vaguely enjoyed them but nothing amazing. The young people at work raved about the tv version of normal people but yams it wasn't radically sexy or profound. Quite sweet but basically Dawsons Creek with a bit of sex. May dip into conversations with friends but only if I run out of other stuff to watch 😊

Loved Normal People. Highly relatable, with the leading character being unlikeable, self absorbed and tiresomely seeking validation. Though a fair bit older, that’s very much my experience of being at uni, though granted I was a bit more practical about things then.

I gave up on the book 2/3 in and turned to the back page to see what happened! I couldn't take any more.

I tried reading it and thought it was awful. The characters were self centred and dull.

I really do not understand the hype.

I loved normal people! But dh and I were like this should be called awkward conversations with people you don’t know very well.
still watching it though!

I like Sally Rooney and I think she has a quite innovative writing style. Normal People is the best of her books to date, but I enjoyed Conversations With Friends. The books are quite subtle and contain a number of themes on class, domestic violence, sexuality, burn out etc which are not easily translated onto screen.

I think calling someone an anti-Semite is a bit foolish. She just doesn’t support Israel’s treatment of Palestinian people. It’s a political stance not a hatred of an entire people. We need to be careful with language.

I know Sally Rooney was very heavily involved in the adaptation of NP to screen but I think I read not so much in CWF.

I agree that NP was Dawson's Creek-esque. All the twenty something year olds stuffed into school uniform at the start was funny.

Stilted, self indulgent conversations with friends 🤣 Load of old shite!

I haven’t read or watched any of them because I usually find if a book is massively hyped and raved about, I hate it!

So i’m just here with a cake delivery
🍰🧁🎂
Happy birthday!

I agree with you.

So, so boring.

What channel is it on?