If you’ve read Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend series, you’ll know that one of the key features of Lila and Lenù’s complicated relationship is how their minds work together, Lenù’s admiration for Lila’s clarity of mind and brilliant ideas, and Lila’s happiness in sharing those moments with Lenù. This is something that is outlined again and again in the four books dedicated to their friendships, and it immediately came to my mind when I read this passage from Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends: