Beautiful World, Where Are You

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

Reviewed by Linda
📘📒

No joke, this book was insufferable and aimless. For those saying it’s Rooney’s best yet, are you ok!? For those like me who enjoyed CWF and Normal People and expected an upgrade, you’ll be disappointed.

With CWF and Normal People, we followed young and *relatable* people in scenarios which we may have found ourselves or our friends in but with #BWWAY, I just don’t really get what Sally was trying to show us. Perhaps a glimpse into her own life? Who is she writing for? I’m not quite clear, and it wasn’t me.

The characters were hard to get on board with: Felix a complete wasteman, Alice a
self-absorbed writer; Eileen I could just about swallow but Simon, a wretched man! The flawed nature of these characters isn’t the issue - I love a problematic character - it’s just how they navigated various situations that seemed so devoid of logic and difficult get to grips with.
For some reason, Rooney also decided against speech marks which made the whole thing harder to follow and then on top of this: the countless emails between Alice and Eileen.
Now in the age of voice notes and WhatsApp, Viber or even a DM on Instagram, who communicates with their mates via email exchange?? For a contemporary author that embraces the here and now, this aspect just seemed forced and tiring to read.
The only redeeming factor in this book is when all 4 characters meet at the end - we finally get some overdue action and some emotion too. This was a close DNF but I persevered for confirmation.