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.

I can't remember whether it was normal people or conversations with friends which ended so suddenly that I was about to write to Amazon to ask them if there was any way an e-book could be sold to customers without the final pages. It's a miracle I got as far as the end actually.

Part of the appeal for Irish viewers was an English actress doing a damn good Irish accent. Not a fan of Enright either , though she is a good critic. Claire Keegan , William Wall. And Kevin Barry is just amazing.

Totally agree op. My mis-spent youth at University was a blast. Youth very much wasted on the current batch.

I wouldn't recommend Anne Enright, I hated The Gathering. I preferred Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times to SR, but it's also a bit shallow and unlikely.

The Irish Times has put together a collection of articles, some by Rooney herself and some by reviewers and others which give some insights for anyone wondering about her life, her ideas, the writing and of course, the books.

www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/sally-rooney-a-profile-of-the-author-in-28-articles-from-the-irish-times-archive-1.4659814

There's useful short extract from each which gives a flavour without having to read the whole article.

I disagree about Marianne & her looks.

Absolutely she is taken as plain in the early part of the book, and importantly, sees herself as such.

But when she gets to Trinity she perceives herself & is perceived, very differently.

I think that's captured well on screen.

But for me they make two quite unlikeable characters highly appealing on screen, and they weren't in the book.

Even little details - in the book when Marianne meets Connell in her house, at the beginning, she's eating Nutella from the jar, and offers him some! In the TV series, she's eating ice cream. Small detail but big difference.

I watched Episode 1 of CWF tonight.

I can see why some would hate it. I found it dream-like, beautifully shot & delicate. Frances is pure annoying tho, which I love!

I'm going to have a look at some of these recommendations for alternative reading.

I confess that I was initially puzzled watching the Conversations with Friends and wondered why they'd started it from a different time point. I was confusing it with Beautiful World! There are some similarities between the novels and characters, in my opinion.

I disagree about Marianne & her looks.

Absolutely she is taken as plain in the early part of the book, and importantly, sees herself as such.

And yet even in the early part of the tv show she is anything but plain. Especially when she goes to the club. Making the glow up at Uni less of an impact.

Well she's not amazing - she's naturally pretty sure but I think that was needed for the screen - it's not that Marianne is unattractive per se in the book. It's the perception of her - by herself and others.

In the screen adaptation, she stands out against the accepted attractiveness of Rachel et al, eg when she arrives in the rain & when she spills yogurt on herself.

I agree Daisy E-J is beautiful regardless!