Conversations with Friends Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Sally Rooney (Author), Aoife McMahon (Narrator), W. F. Howes Ltd (Publisher)

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Winner of The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year.

Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2018.

Shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2018.

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018.

Shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2019.

Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2018.

A Sunday Times, Observer and Telegraph Book of the Year.

A Sunday Times Top 100 Novel of the 21st Century.

Frances is 21 years old, cool-headed and observant. A student in Dublin and an aspiring writer, at night she performs spoken word with her best friend Bobbi, who used to be her girlfriend. When they are interviewed and then befriended by Melissa, a well-known journalist who is married to Nick, an actor, they enter a world of beautiful houses, raucous dinner parties and holidays in Provence, beginning a complex ménage-à-quatre. But when Frances and Nick get unexpectedly closer, the sharply witty and emotion-averse Frances is forced to honestly confront her own vulnerabilities for the first time.

Listening Length

8 hours and 33 minutes
Author

Sally Rooney
Narrator

Aoife McMahon
Audible release date

1 June 2017
Language

English
Publisher

W. F. Howes Ltd
ASIN

B0716YBKTG
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	8 hours and 33 minutes
Author	Sally Rooney
Narrator	Aoife McMahon
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	01 June 2017
Publisher	W. F. Howes Ltd
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B0716YBKTG
Best Sellers Rank	151 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 6 in Literary Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 18 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews

5 star		35%
4 star		35%
3 star		22%
2 star		5%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Amazon Customer

DNF - disappointing

Reviewed in Australia on 27 July 2021

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After reading and enjoying Normal People I had expectations that this book would be as good. Sadly i was mistaken. Characters that are extremely unlikeable, self absorbed, chronically insular and completely unrelatable with a story that seemed to be going nowhere. I simply could not connect with this book at all and did not finish it - a rare occurrence for me.

2 people found this helpful

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Julie G

Gripping storytelling of young love

Reviewed in Australia on 4 September 2019

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I loved reading Normal People by Sally Rooney and I also loved reading this mesmerising interior exploration of love between 4 main characters. She inhabits her characters in such a way that their eccentric behaviours and thoughts are totally convincing. I also appreciate her awareness of class and power and how these factors affect relationships. Highly recommended!

One person found this helpful

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Iza

Reviewed in Australia on 13 January 2019

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This was a well written character study. However, I found the narrator frustrating as she was portrayed as a strong minded independent person, but ultimately turned out to be quite weak and pathetic. Frustrating end to the story.

2 people found this helpful

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shags2207

Great read.

Reviewed in Australia on 1 January 2018

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What a great book this is. I read some chapters and listened to others on Audible. I had trouble putting it down (or removing the AirPods). The book is so well written that I really felt I was in Frances’ head a lot of the time and felt her feelings as she struggled her way through the complexities of her relationships. Highly recommended. I’ve never given a book 5 stars, I’m reserving that for the last book I ever read (and re-read in perpetuity). This one was close! My best read of 2017, albeit concluded on 1 January 2018.

2 people found this helpful

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Kay Casey

Yawn

Reviewed in Australia on 20 April 2019

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I would not have continued reading this book but it was on my book group list. Nothing of substance to get your teeth into. The author has never heard of quotation marks which was a little confusing at times. Mainly about lesbianism.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Decent practice run before the perfect Normal People was created.

Reviewed in Australia on 9 June 2020

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Mostly a good read. I did like the strong focus on friendship and realising what you have when you lose it. However, the protagonist was confusing at times and became very unlike able and hard to relate to. I felt her actions didn’t make sense and I was quite frustrated towards the end.

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Victoria

Not my thing

Reviewed in Australia on 27 May 2019

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I just didn't click with any of the characters in the book, which made it a little tedious to read.

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Deirdre OSullivan

Thought provoking

Reviewed in Australia on 1 March 2020

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Excellent use of diction and description.
Loved the story. Entanglement of irresistible relationships.
Dublin as a setting is like an extra character.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Adam K.

Surely Some Mistake?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2019

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This book comes festooned with awards and laudatory reviews, blurbs and hype and Rooney herself is acclaimed as the Next Big Thing, one of the great authors of the 21st Century.

The mind boggles, the currency cheapens, and all faith in pundits and the judgement of Zadie Smith goes right down the pan.

This is a truly, truly, dreadful book, almost fascinatingly so. Frances, supposedly "cool headed and observant", falls in love with an older, married man. It goes badly. Surprised? She apparently is. "I can't remember if I thought about this at the beginning. How it was doomed to end unhappily" is a line from about halfway through. Apart from the cringe-worthy triteness, it also reveals the lead character to be stunningly obtuse, and far from the "observant" person the blurb on the cover would have us believe. All the characters - Frances, her best friend/lover Bobbi, the journalist Melissa and the husband/lover Nick - are so flatly written they might as well be cardboard cut-outs, their dialogue equally flat and lifeless and dull, to the point that it became impossible to work out who's talking. It could be anybody, about anybody, about anything.

And then there's the prose itself -- it's....it's hideous, it really is. About halfway through I started making notes in the margins, underlining the worst passages -- something an editor is supposed to do. In no particular order: "His heart continued to beat like an excited or miserable clock" It...it what?? "Valerie spoke with a moneyed British accent, too rich to be comical". How does THAT work? "I perceived that my face and hair were becoming wet, too wet to feel normal"; "She looked clean and dry like a model from a catalogue. My hair was leaking water into my face". Leaking? "I laughed to myself, although there was no one there to see me". That's kind of what it means, right? "He never touched me like that usually. But he was looking at me, so I guess he must have known who I was". Wait, this woman's supposed to be "observant", right? And my favourite: "He touched me cautiously like a deer touches things with its face". Oh god, make it stop.

Seriously, this is supposed to be award-worthy? A tired story, hitched to some staggeringly dreadful prose which reveals nothing of the workings of the human heart, nothing of the soul, nothing of passion. Shame on the critics who have passed this off as something worthy, shame on every one of the publications whose glowing quotes litter the front pages of this travesty. I'm tempted to read Rooney's "Normal People" to see if it's as hysterically bad or if, by some miracle, she improved. If I come across a copy for less than a pound, I might just, but I'm not paying much more for this kind of nonsense.

438 people found this helpful

Molly

The reviews on the cover are wrong

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 October 2018

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This book is in the running for the worst book I have read so far this year. I kept on reading in the hope that something would happen or that one of the characters would endear themselves to be but I shouldn't have bothered. This book is banal and the characters are irritating and impossible to bond with on any level. The writing is clumpy and oddly bland, there is no descriptions of Ireland or France that invoke any connections with those places. This is one of those books that I wonder how on earth she got a publishing deal when there are so many better authors self publishing amazing works because they can't get published and this drivel can. I just don't get it.

291 people found this helpful

S. Gleeson

Terrible characters and storyline

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 January 2019

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I don't even know where to start with this review. This book was so bad it actually makes me feel angry that I finished it and wasted my time. I kept wanting to give it another chance but the while thing just frustrated me.

The characters in this book aren't just badly written, I hated them all and they learned nothing from their experiences, they just repeated their loathing behaviour and terrible life decisions over and over again. The main character is so full of self loathing and yet completely self centred and so over privileged but treats herself like the endless victim of every situation.

I have no doubt that sally rooney can write, but these characters make me want to punch a wall.

The story goes nowhere and seems like it begins when it ends. I also didn't enjoy the conversation style without quote marks, it just made it unnecessarily difficult to distinguish between what characters were saying and what they were thinking.

Sorry I wasted my time reading it and I have no clue why it's so highly critically acclaimed.

210 people found this helpful

P. G. Harris

Deeply human and humane

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 September 2018

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In my student days, I knew more than one Frances, cooler than everyone else, more intelligent, and slightly (or often very) intimidating. Then, years later you find out they were actually more messed up than everyone else.
Conversations with Friends is the story of four people and the shifting relationships between them. Frances and Bobbi are students in Dublin. Ex-lovers, they remain close friends and work the literary circuit as performance poets. Frances is introverted, a talented writer, while Bobbi is an extrovert, the more gifted performer. Melissa is a photographer who wants to profile the two young women. She invites them to a party at her home, where they meet her husband, Nick, completing the central quartet. Bobbi fancies Melissa, Frances is drawn to Nick.

As the story progresses, it shifts between Dublin and a holiday in France. Through the novel, each goes through ups and downs and the relationships between them are equally volatile. We also learn about their troubled pasts and present, especially Nick and Frances.

In a word, I thought it was terrific, absolutely terrific. I've read a number of more critical reviews and while I can appreciate a number (but not all) of the negative comments, I still think the book is terrific.

Is this a book in which none of the characters is pleasant? I would have to disagree with that. Frances is outwardly cold, snarky and aloof. But she is also insecure, damaged and sensitive. She might be difficult , but she isn't unlovable. There is one devastating scene near the end of the book where she is confronted by the difference between her own self image and the impression another character has of her.

It is true that this isn't a plot heavy book, but that isn't the point. This is primarily a book about relationships, and those relationships are superbly drawn. As the portrayal of friendship between two young women, that between Frances and Bobbi feels completely genuine and realistic. The sparks which fly between Nick and Frances generated by something between love and hate are thrilling.

The writing style is flat, functional, almost child like at times. Again, as the voice of this disengaged, alienated young woman that came across as completely authentic.

So, it a nutshell, this is a stunningly humane work about damaged, ambiguous, very human people.

139 people found this helpful

C Heath

Beautiful writing, pedestrian story-telling

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 September 2018

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There were moments in this book I just wanted it to take off. You spend a lot of time (most of the book) thinking come on get good, get good and the only reason you really stick with it is because of her abilities as a a writer. You can tell Sally Rooney's a fabulous writer, there is some gorgeous prose but it's so difficult to stick with because you just never ever warm to the characters and it just meanders aimlessly at times. I literally threw the book on the bed in frustration having finished the final paragraph. I do think she'll write a wonderful book one day but unfortunately it's not this one.

80 people found this helpful

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Conversations with Friends Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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