Beautiful World, Where Are You
Ratings322
Average rating3.5
As Always have I fallen head to toe in love with Sally's writing and of course, the characters she introduces.
Finally a Rooney book that ends with a resolution, like an actual feeling of a book ending. It's a bit different from the previous two, this one feels more mature, subtle, the characters are older, there isn't the usual raw emotion, a bit more cerebral. My favourite parts were the emails exchanged between Alice and Eileen, a kind of stream of consciousness analysis of life, of how life is under Capitalism, of the alienation between friends, society, the role of religion, i would gladly read an epistolary novel by Sally Rooney.
Achei muito mais envolvente que o anterior dela e me ocorreu inclusive que isso era o que eu esperava de Elena Ferrante e nunca encontrei. Acompanhar a fragilidade e realidade de Eileen e Alice, Felix e Simon foi um bom laço.
3.5 rounded down to a 3.
The writing style is quite clunky, but you get used to it. One of the characters is a millionaire writer, and at times she talks about what it's like to be famous, which felt a bit too much like the author complaining via the character.
I finished it and felt left with a sense of “well what was the point in that?” hence the low rating.
So, toward the end, with less than 40 pages to go, I got stuck in one chapter for about a week and a half. Because every time I tried to read this chapter, I would fall asleep. Part of it was being tired. But part of it was sheer boredom.
This was my least favorite. I didn't buy any of the relationships. Simon is blandly nice and good. Supposedly. I thought he was milquetoast and stupid.
Sadly, the author is definitely a one-trick pony. She is obviously intelligent. But I don't understand the ruminations on religion. Maybe that's because I come from a religious background (though Protestant), and I find the things Alice and Eileen think about religion to be naive, if not completely incorrect. And I don't understand why Alice and Felix are together, because they have zero chemistry; he's also a butthead. That being said, he's also the first character whom I feel like isn't merely performing his bisexuality. I believe, a little, that he is bi; I've never believed it of the other characters in her novels. I still don't believe any of them are Marxist; they all just say they are.
The quarter-life crises of the characters doesn't feel quite fleshed-out enough. I remember my friends all having quarter-life crises. There were similar worries, but less pretention.
I'm also very over heteronormativity of the characters, even the ones who aren't heteronormative. I don't know anyone personally at this point who performs gender so normatively as Eileen, Marianne, or Frances. Once again, a female character wants to be abused by a man. And once again, the characters can't communicate. Like, at all. Ever. Simon can't just come out and tell Eileen how he feels? But he can have sex with her over and over again? He's an idiot.
It's the same story, just with different details. And the style was killing me. I...I just can't. And this is purely subjective. But the lack of quotation marks. The need for more paragraphs. The run-ons. It doesn't feel experimental; it feels lazy.
That being said, I feel like this is maybe the most honest of the three books. Mostly because of the emails between the supposed besties. Who also can't communicate very well in person. I get that; that part makes sense. But the lack of chemistry when they finally meet does not.
Reading this, I know everyone thinks Alice is Rooney's avatar. But so is Eileen.
I'm sorry for the negative reviews, but her novels elude me. I don't relate. I don't see myself or my friends, most of whom are actually smack-dab in the midst of the Millennial generation. Rooney is obviously intelligent, but I'm confused by the naivete of her supposedly worldly characters, the stupidity of her male characters, and how no one can communicate properly. Maybe it's all just too cis/white/thin/privileged/heteronormative for me–because the characters are, despite their proclamations otherwise.
This was such a beautiful, refreshing, intriguing, and thought-provoking read. I loved the way that it was structured, with an equal focus on both Alice and Eileen. I didn't feel that one character outshone the other, or that either of them dominated the narrative. Having each chapter separated by emails between the two characters also created an intriguing dynamic which I would argue is vital to the storyline.
While the chapters following Alice and Eileen separately delve into family, relationships, love, and sex, the emails explore a wide range of social, political, and philosophical topics. These emails almost feel like conversations between Sally Rooney and herself, and she gives refreshing and insightful perspectives on the meanings and questions surrounding religion, beauty, love, modern society, classism, sexuality, the dissonance of reflecting back on our past selves, and having children in a seemingly doomed society.
I was intrigued by both of the relationships, between Alice and Felix, and Eileen and Simon. The characters were not always likeable, but that is what made them feel real. I found that I related a lot to Alice and Eileen's desires and behavioural tendencies - many of which I think Sally Rooney intended to pose as universal experiences to women. In particular, Alice's defensiveness and need to prove her superiority, as well as Eileen's desire to be reassured and fought for. Eileen's desire to be dominated by Simon was also a topic I found especially interesting. She experiences an almost guilty pleasure of feeling weak and tender and needing to be protected and cared for by Simon - which I believe has a mildly sexist undercurrent - yet it is something that is experienced by so many women. I wish Sally Rooney had explored this idea more.
I was surprised and impressed by the insight Felix and Simon show into Alice and Eileen's behaviours. At times I caught myself feeling angry and defensive when Alice and Eileen were challenged by them, and then I realised that it was because I have acted in many of the same ways myself and for the first time I was discovering why. It is intimidating how insightful and intelligent Sally Rooney is.
Love, sex, and friendship are the core themes of the book. Contrasting Normal People, Sally Rooney showed that relationships can heal and recover from seemingly irreparable damage, and she does so in a way that is somehow simultaneously comforting and uncomfortable. It is challenging yet reassuring.
I cannot recommend this enough. Please don't be put off Sally Rooney and miss out on reading such a masterpiece for something as trivial as quotation marks. This was such a pleasure to read and a book that I know I will revisit time and time again in order to completely digest all of its brilliance.
I had to collect my thoughts for a while, so here's what I have so far. I read Normal People and thought it was okay, maybe I wasn't complex enough to understand Marianne and Connor's relationship, but I rated it three stars in the end. I did not plan on buying any other Sally Rooney books, and the only reason I bought this one was because of the hype. And the hype was right. This book had absolutely nothing and everything at the same time. I practically had to tear myself away from the book, and that hasn't happened in a long time. What I find interesting, though, is I feel as if Rooney has taken me and split me in half to make Alice and Eileen. Loved it.
Four thirty-something people and their relationships are the focus of this novel. The plot is told like stage directions—this person wakes up, gets dressed, walks into the kitchen, tells the other person goodbye—from a slightly removed point-of-view, and these scenes are alternated with emails that two of the characters frequently send back and forth to each other.
I'm always being told that I don't know what life is like for young adults today, and, after reading this book, I feel like I now have a better idea of what it's like. The relationships push forward and then suddenly one or the other people in the relationship stops or even steps back. People are deeply reluctant to express themselves or commit or meet in person or even answer the phone. Some people can't make enough money to make it through the month and others never think about money. It's a picture of modern young adults that feels very true.
Unsurprisingly, I really enjoyed this book. Sally Rooney is fast becoming one of my favourite writers.
The tone of the ending was a bit strange though, and the introduction of the pandemic very abrupt.
Throughout the book, the emails between Alice and Eileen often felt a little overwrought. The two of them had such a similar outlook on life that at times it felt like someone writing themselves letters back and forth, in the manner that a person might play chess against themselves.
Still, it was well worth a read and most of all I loved stepping back into Sally Rooney's writing. So full of detail yet simple at the same time.
Positives: 1. True to life depiction of female friendships 2. The relative cinematography (pan in / pan out effect)
Negatives: Couldn't stand a single one of these people, and not in an anti-hero / anti-heroine sense
I like Sally Rooney writing style and how it makes the story flow.
This book follows the story of two friends and their love interests and it is written in 3 different POV. I specially enjoyed how the POV changed making the story move forward.
Although the characters were somewhat unlikable I was really invested on their outcomes which is what I consider the most important in storytelling.
Really liked some parts and Simon and Eileen's dynamic, but I think it's time to admit Miss Rooney's writing might not be for me.
I wanted Sally Rooney to evolve her style and her stories, but this was not it. Her characters are usually pretty annoying in a fun way, but I never wished to read their chapter-long email converstations full with hipster anxieties about the world. I also didn't need Rooney to insert herself in the novel to tell us how much she hated the whole attention her success has brought her. In between those two things there was a rather typical story about insecure young adults talking about their insecurities while having a lof of sex.
Got to 70% and bailed. Didn't grab me. The form confused me with the emails. Might be because I'm in a sad place at the moment so don't take my word for it.
perhaps it was the repetitive nature of the themes on purpose and love and friendship and sex. Perhaps I see a lot of Alice in myself at the moment minus the success part. Perhaps engaging with a relationship where both parties are seeing and thinking different things but still engaging with it is confusing for my brain right now.
I feel like in my life i'm slowly making the journey from my head to my heart, and with that from a more binary view to the world to one with much more grey - I feel like Beautiful World, Where Are You really hits on the greyness, the dullness, ordinaryness of the world...maybe I wasn't ready to swallow that pill?
It would be cruel to not love the book and mark it as a favourite.
After months of eager anticipation on Rooney's new work, I have found my anticipation not to be let down in any sense and her rise was nothing like foam, so easily shattered into pieces as the heat would die out eventually. Rather, I did a binge on this book as I was so indulged in the book that throughout the times when I was getting a break from it or having lessons in school during the day I couldn't even put it off my mind.
The novel, for sure, as it is Rooney's style to put everyday life and event into novels that turn out to be extraordinary, opposing their nature, being written and only revolved around normality. But this one, from which stands itself out of the other two, shows a predominant sense of maturity fully infused throughout the novel, from that of friendship and love to even a broader view about the peril the world is facing, and most importantly, as a key feature, we can get to know how Rooney felt when she was so young and successful just by writing two novels and rose herself to become an internationally well acclaimed novelist. This happens to be the only extraordinary bit of the novel, especially being portrayed by Alice, it did bring out the problems behind a seemingly successful life with a too-large-to-be-used amount of income, that in some sense it would be completely incomprehensible and detaching in its own way that separates herself from the normal people out there.
Another prominent element present in the novel, is again that difference between social classes. However, it was so different this time that it was not a substantial border being placed between the characters on their financial and social status-Alice was from working class background just like Felix. Through the book there are a lot of arguments, misunderstanding embedded and surrounded by the loving nature of their relationships. Sometimes, it is simply so frustrating that the characters cannot reach the common ground and keep putting themselves on the balance of contribution to sustain the friendship or courtship. Yet, it is love, and it is immeasurable. This do shine a light on the seemingly depressing or close-to-be-breaking-apart relationships and in the end, everything was not ugly but is indeed beautiful.
In this sense, the title might have proven to me, that in search of a perfect state or anywhere close to an utopia for actual beauty, which is rather improbable, perhaps it would be more advisable to simply go look after your loved ones, family members, give them your love and care, in a microscopic way of contributing to the world so that what meets us in the end is that beautifying nature of love, of any sorts of intimacy. Being mentioned in the book of those ideologies, political issues, plastics, consumerism, pollution, global warming... they are very spot on and yet, as individuals if we are to eradicate the problems, we can only try and change in that according portion which individuals are bound to contribute. Is it so selfish and unsympathetic as a human being to only look out for the close ones around us, instead of caring about the world as we are global citizens? This I fear not, as mentioned in the book, “Maybe we're just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing”. Finding emotional fulfillment in loving and being loved, in caring and being taken cared of, in living and to be lived for... No, it is never bad. “What if the meaning of life on earth is not eternal progress toward some unspecified goal—the engineering and production of more and more powerful technologies, the development of more and more complex and abstruse cultural forms? What if these things just rise and recede naturally, like tides, while the meaning of life remains the same always—just to live and be with other people?” As long as there is meaning to live for, who cares?
It would be cruel to not like the book and mark it as a favourite.
After months of eager anticipation on Rooney's new work, I have found my anticipation not to be let down in any sense and her rise was nothing like foam, so easily shattered into pieces as the heat would die out eventually. Rather, I did a binge on this book as I was so indulged in the book that throughout the times when I was getting a break from it or having lessons in school during the day I couldn't even put it off my mind.
The novel, for sure, as it is Rooney's style to put everyday life and event into novels that turn out to be extraordinary, opposing their nature, being written and only revolved around normality. But this one, from which stands itself out of the other two, shows a predominant sense of maturity fully infused throughout the novel, from that of friendship and love to even a broader view about the peril the world is facing, and most importantly, as a key feature, we can get to know how Rooney felt when she was so young and successful just by writing two novels and rose herself to become an internationally well acclaimed novelist. This happens to be the only extraordinary bit of the novel, especially being portrayed by Alice, it did bring out the problems behind a seemingly successful life with a too-large-to-be-used amount of income, that in some sense it would be completely incomprehensible and detaching in its own way that separates herself from the normal people out there.
Another prominent element present in the novel, is again that difference between social classes. However, it was so different this time that it was not a substantial border being placed between the characters on their financial and social status-Alice was from working class background just like Felix. Through the book there are a lot of arguments, misunderstanding embedded and surrounded by the loving nature of their relationships. Sometimes, it is simply so frustrating that the characters cannot reach the common ground and keep putting themselves on the balance of contribution to sustain the friendship or courtship. Yet, it is love, and it is immeasurable. This do shine a light on the seemingly depressing or close-to-be-breaking-apart relationships and in the end, everything was not ugly but is indeed beautiful.
In this sense, the title might have proven to me, that in search of a perfect state or anywhere close to an utopia for actual beauty, which is rather improbable, perhaps it would be more advisable to simply go look after your loved ones, family members, give them your love and care, in a microscopic way of contributing to the world so that what meets us in the end is that beautifying nature of love, of any sorts of intimacy. Being mentioned in the book of those ideologies, political issues, plastics, consumerism, pollution, global warming... they are very spot on and yet, as individuals if we are to eradicate the problems, we can only try and change in that according portion which individuals are bound to contribute. Is it so selfish and unsympathetic as a human being to only look out for the close ones around us, instead of caring about the world as we are global citizens? This I fear not, as mentioned in the book, “Maybe we're just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing”. Finding emotional fulfillment in loving and being loved, in caring and being taken cared of, in living and to be lived for... No, it is never bad. “What if the meaning of life on earth is not eternal progress toward some unspecified goal—the engineering and production of more and more powerful technologies, the development of more and more complex and abstruse cultural forms? What if these things just rise and recede naturally, like tides, while the meaning of life remains the same always—just to live and be with other people?” As long as there is meaning to live for, who cares?
One funny thing I have always had about Rooney's work is that I always find her characters resembling and vibing on me in a resonating way. This time, I could see myself, the people around me with their personalities being on every bit of those of the characters. It is deeply reassuring for me-perhaps that is what normality is, nothing is ever special as the masses are never special to achieve huge fame or prosperity or power.
The last bit I think that was worth-mentioning is about the ending, which was a surprise to me corresponding to lockdown, and become a little bit of a COVID novel. That relatablitiy immensely installed in almost every element of the novel... It simply blows me off and again makes Sally Rooney so appreciable in the literature world. I hope this wouldn't give her much pressure due to the fame and the fact that she has rocketed to a shattering height in the area.
This is a beautiful and meaningful masterpiece.
One sentence synopsis... The romantic longings of four angsty millennials struggling to confront global catastrophe and their complicated feelings for each other.
Read it if you like... ‘Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants' but the friends share polemics against capitalism and gendered power dynamics instead of magical pants. Also, if you're interested in art that tackles the pandemic - albeit with a light touch.
Dream casting... Emma Corrin as Alice (the Rooney character stand-in) and Jack O'Connell as her love interest, the warehouse worker Felix.