Topics of Conversation

Praise

Named a best book of the year by TIME, Esquire, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Glamor, and Bustle

“Lyrical. . . . Smart and raw.”
—The Washington Post

“Sally Rooney-esque. . . . Popkey’s sentences careen breathlessly as her halting, staccato prose mirrors the ‘churning’ within the narrator’s mind. . . . A shrewd record of the act of unflinchingly circling these amorphous notions of pain, desire and control.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Masterly.”
—The New Yorker
 
“Electrifying. . . . Shrewd and sensual, Popkey’s debut carries the scintillating charge of a long-overdue girls’ night.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Slim but potent… has the flavor of Rachel Cusk. . . . Provocative. . . . Sure to spark conversation.”
—NPR
 
“Formally adventurous and blisteringly current. . . . In glittering prose, Popkey illuminates the performative nature of storytelling, assessing the degree to which the stories we tell about our lives are fictions.”
—Esquire
 
“As [the narrator] explores her own history through a shifting lens of female rivalries and friendships, the book’s surface coolness begins to peel away, revealing the raw, uncommon nerve of a radically honest storyteller.”
—Entertainment Weekly
 
“Masterfully controlled, delightfully chilly.”
—The Boston Globe
 
“Icily intelligent. . . . Reading Topics of Conversation [is] as thrilling as being told a secret.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Perceptive, biting. . . . There’s much to relate to and dogear in this slim book.”
—Real Simple
 
“Bedazzling. . . . A slender volume with the power of lightning.”
—BookPage
 
“Rich and rigorous.”
—Kirkus Reviews