Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney - review

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Title: Beautiful World, Where Are You

Author: Sally Rooney

Genre: Literary Fiction/Contemporary, Millennial Fiction

Pages: 356

My rating: ★★★☆☆ - 3 1/2

Other notable works by author: Conversations With Friends; Normal People

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I feel like I’m probably the last person on earth (or at least in the bookiverse) to have read this book, so I probably don’t have anything new or revelatory to add to the chorus of reviews that are already out there, but I’ll still throw in my two cents anyway.

To be honest, I was pretty reluctant to pick up this book, that’s why it has taken me so long to put out this review. When Normal People came out I was super excited to get my hands on it, and therefore equally super disappointed when I actually read it. I believe I gave it two stars on my Goodreads. I was not only upset about the contents of the book itself, but I was also upset that seemingly everybody seemed to love it except me (obviously not true), and it seemed to confirm some insecure thought within myself that I would never really fit in with ‘normal people’ (the irony!). That’s why when BWWAY got released, I was confident that I wasn’t going to read it. I also didn't want to review a book that I was convinced I wasn’t going to like: why put more unnecessary negativity out there, especially for something that is so dear to many people’s hearts?

Eventually, after browsing endless reviews, both good and bad, curiosity finally got the better of me. I just had to read it for myself! Another selling point was that a portion of the story (a very small one I was annoyed to find out) takes place in Rome, a city that I pretty much grew up in (though not Italian) and am actually temporarily living in again right now.

So, after that lengthy introduction – what did I actually think?

Surprisingly (for me, at least), I didn't hate it. In fact, I think I might have fallen in love a bit with Sally Rooney. Pretty much everything she wrote about (most of the contents of the emails, anyways) I almost completely agree with or have similar thoughts. The exchanges between Eileen and Alice was like reading a very eloquent conversation between two parts of my brain, pretty much agreeing with each other. And although it made me very much want to meet Sally Rooney, I don’t think it made for the most interesting novel content, because therein lay the problem: half the book seemed to be Sally Rooney wanting to just put all her opinions out there. It probably would’ve worked better as a series of essays, rather than a fiction novel.

As for the other parts of the novel, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing style which reads as aloof and detached, a slightly robotic description of what is happening in the scene, almost like a screenplay. As for the two different couples in the book, of which the story revolves around, I’m really not a fan of how Rooney romanticises unhealthy relationships. Neither of them felt like love to me, and just like in Normal People, I was put off by how cruel the characters can be to each other (normally I wouldn’t mind reading about unhealthy relationships, what bothers me is that people are passing this off as loving). Of course, this is just my opinion, and I know that relationships can be complicated and messy, and certainly not lovey-dovey all the time. I just think that Rooney tends to write more about relationships as power dynamics, where both sides are striving to obtain the upper hand (whether consciously or not) and therefore they don't exactly read as loving, to me.

All in all, somewhat of a pleasant surprise, for me. I gained a new respect for Sally Rooney, and wish she was my friend; I like this book way better than Normal People, and it's always exciting to see a writer progress; and I finally feel like I kind of ‘get’ what all the fuss is about when people gush about her novels.