Hard to believe I’ve been running this Friday series for half a year already, but the calendar doesn’t lie. So, to celebrate this small milestone for this series I started mainly due to a random impulse, I want to cover something by an author that has really grown on me across the last months: Sally Rooney.
Beautiful World, Where Are You focuses on a quartet of characters. Alice, a troubled but successful novelist in the mid-twenties; Felix, a warehouse worker; and Eileen and Simon, two childhood friends that seem to be gravitating towards a relationship after Eileen’s recent breakup.
It appears to be a novel that will build upon the hurt and messiness found within Rooney’s acclaimed Normal People, but spread it out across more characters. It blends coming of age with a story that is already set firmly in the adulthood of its small cast of characters, which I feel is an interesting concept. Naturally, being Rooney, there is seemingly also a lot of sex and carnal desire sprinkled throughout.
Given that her aforementioned novel was able to hook me so easily once I actually sat down to read it, I feel Beautiful World, Where Are You is another novel that will encapsulate my attention for days on end until I am finished exploring all the pain and emotions laced throughout it. If it’s Rooney, it’s likely quality.
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