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Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

*Starred Review* University students in Dublin, Frances and Bobbi have been inseparable since they dated in high school. No longer lovers, they perform Frances' poetry together and run in an artsy circle that is one day intersected by a much older couple, Melissa and Nick. Bobbi, assured in her love of women only, is immediately smitten with Melissa, a published author, while Frances feels an attraction to actor Nick, her first male love interest, which appears to be, somewhat shockingly, mutual. Frances has idolized Bobbi since they met, often comparing their confidence, intelligence, and beauty and feeling that she comes up short. Now her sexual, top-secret relationship with Nick drives them apart. Add to that Frances' diagnosis with endometriosis, which she keeps to herself, causing deep and confusing anxiety, along with the crushing, monthly pain, and she is in a bad place. With painful missteps and wise triumphs, Frances probes her beliefs in most everything sexuality, relationships, politics, and her family and learns to distinguish between what she's told and what she thinks. Less a coming-of-age story and more a coming-of-now tale, Rooney's first novel is a smart, sexy, realistic portrayal of a woman finding herself in and out of a well-depicted friendship.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2017 Booklist


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The story of the entangled affairs of a group of exceedingly smart and self-possessed creative types.Frances, an aloof and intelligent 21-year-old living in Dublin, is an aspiring poet and communist. She performs her spoken-word pieces with her best friend and ex-lover, Bobbi, who is equally intellectual but gregarious where Frances is shy and composed where Frances is awkward. When Melissa, a notable writer and photographer, approaches the pair to offer to do a profile of them, they accept excitedly. While Bobbi is taken with Melissa, Frances becomes infatuated by her lifeher success, her beautiful home, her actor husband, Nick. Nick is handsome and mysterious and, it turns out, returns Frances' attraction. Although he can sometimes be withholding of his affection (he struggles with depression), they begin a passionate affair. Frances and Nick's relationship makes difficult the already tense (for its intensity) relationship between Frances and Bobbi. In the midst of this complicated dynamic, Frances is also managing endometriosis and neglectful parentsan abusive, alcoholic father and complicit mother. As a narrator, Frances describes all these complex fragments in an ethereal and thoughtful but self-loathing way. Rooney captures the mood and voice of contemporary women and their interpersonal connections and concerns without being remotely predictable. In her debut novel, she deftly illustrates psychology's first lesson: that everyone is doomed to repeat their patterns. A clever and current book about a complicated woman and her romantic relationships. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.


Publishers Weekly
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In this searing, insightful debut, Rooney offers an unapologetic perspective on the vagaries of relationships. When Frances and Bobbi, former lovers and college students who perform Frances's poetry together, meet Melissa, a famed photographer who wants to do a story about them, the two young women's lives are transformed. Bobbi, the more outgoing and social of the two, has a crush on Melissa; Frances, ever the enigmatic intellectual, is intrigued by Nick, Melissa's glamorous actor husband. From Frances's point of view, readers experience the exhilarating and devastating emotional roller coaster of love, not only in the trajectory of her developing relationship with Nick but also in the layered, complicated relationship between her and Bobbi, as they traverse the rocky road from lovers to friends and back again and transition to the world of adulthood. Rooney lets readers glimpse the rich interior of Frances's life-capturing the tension and excitement of her attraction to Nick, how she justifies her feelings and treatment of the people around her, and how she is shaped by the separation of her understanding mother and her alcoholic father. Here, too, is a treatise on married life, the impact of infidelity, the ramifications of one's actions, and how the person one chooses to be with can impact one's individuality. Throughout, Rooney's descriptive eye lends beauty and veracity to this complex and vivid story. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Library Journal
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DEBUT Best friends who were formerly a couple, Frances and Bobbi attend university and perform spoken-word pieces in Dublin. Melissa chronicles the urban Irish arts scene as an established photojournalist and wants to cover these talented young women and their work. As Melissa's social circle closes around the younger women, Frances initiates an affair with Melissa's sickly husband, Nick. This relationship, as well as Frances's burgeoning literary reputation, attenuates the bonds among everyone involved. Ultimately, Frances's art drives Bobbi away, even as Nick's improving health and intimacy with his wife push Frances to the brink of mental and physical disaster. By book's end, everyone has achieved a precarious equilibrium, though readers are left to wonder if it can last. Narrated by Frances, Rooney's satisfying first novel artfully traces the emotional intricacies that draw people together as well as the social vicissitudes that complicate these connections. Frances is a tricky narrator, brilliant and analytical yet somehow unknowable to herself and others. VERDICT Readers who enjoyed Belinda McKeon's Tender and Caitriona Lally's Eggshells will enjoy this exceptional debut. [See Prepub Alert, 2/13/17.]-John G. Matthews, -Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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