In The Book of Goose, an adult Agnès celebrates the complex intimacy of young friendship. Her most formative relationship is her childhood friendship with Fabienne, her love for Fabienne being platonic and romantic. She puts the brilliant Fabienne on a pedestal and idolizes her as a source of stimulation. In postwar reconstruction France, Agnès and Fabienne’s families experience poverty, death, and other hardships. Only together can the girls escape the reality of such tragedies. They inspire each other’s resilience in an otherwise threatening world. Fabienne is also Agnès’s source of identity. Agnès believes she only exists in tandem with Fabienne, their friendship being codependent but supportive.

In a world of tragedy, true love is hard to find. Agnès and Fabienne don’t receive much love from their families, who are too busy trying to survive. The girls’ love for each other is their only source of companionship, sisterhood, and romance. Young friendship is complex, but Agnès and Fabienne’s friendship is all the more complicated because of their situation. What makes young friendship intimate is that children are still learning about themselves and the world. Agnès and Fabienne are already hardened by the challenges of life, but through their roleplaying games and writing, they are able to reclaim some innocence.