2.5 stars.
I just wanted more. It almost felt like an essay memoir rather than a novel. It was a quick read and I felt that while it had some excellent points and insights something was missing to link them all together and make a truly great point. I really wanted to love it as it is a novel that has had a lot of hype around it. Nonetheless I would love to see more from this author as I felt there was definite potential!

It's become clear to me that I don't gel with Sally Rooney's writing. This novel was more tolerable than Normal People in that I was able to finish it.

It was originally sitting at 3 stars but the ending knocked it down to a 2.75. Look I'm not anti-unlikable characters. I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and to my surprise enjoyed it. However, everyone in this novel was annoying, selfish, privileged and generally awful. And if they weren't those things they were barely formed one-dimensional side characters. I felt annoyed that the story line with Frances and her father wasn't really tied up. There were a few threads in this novel that seemed like space fillers and just faded out into nothing.

Trigger warning to potential readers that there is self-harm in the book which I wasn't expecting. Weirdly it's never confronted, examined or really dealt with by the protagonist or the people around her.

The book left me feeling irritated and claustrophobic and I just couldn't wait to get away from Frances so I guess that's a plus for Rooney's writing in that it made me feel something? As I said in my rant about Normal People - I don't think not using quotation marks makes your novel literary fiction.

All in all an okay read but I don't think I'll be attempting another Rooney in future - I'm glad she resonates with some people but for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, her writing just isn't for me.

This was okay but the strange transphobic rant in the middle felt completely out of place and also ruined it for me.