Beautiful World, Where Are You

First of all thank you so much to @thatgoodgoodbook for sending me this ARC. I squealed with delight when it landed. This story follows two friends as they move through the world trying to figure out love, friendship, work, and just the general meaning of life.

I’m not gonna lie when I first started reading it I was a bit perplexed. 120 pages in and I’m kind of wondering where it’s all going. It’s a lot of emails and general musings that mostly sound like Rooney is just talking to us, which fine? I guess? I was on the cusp of a DNF after speaking with @ellehaunter but also like “eh I gotta give it another shot.” On a sleepless night I picked it up again and couldn’t put it down till 2 AM.

It really pulled me in and I enjoyed it. It was relaxing at a time I needed it most and Rooney’s writing is oddly soothing. I know there is a longer conversation to be had here about the many themes of the novel but at its core this is a romance novel. I will also die on this hill with @caseythereader. I mean I get that there were a lot of philosophical musings having to do with the apocalypse, the fall of civilization blah blah blah, but I just didn’t really care about what these two people had to say about it. Like yes, we are all scared because it does kind of seem like we’re in the end game, but many people of the global majority have probably shared that sentiment for generations. I’m not saying these two women are not allowed to have those feelings, of course they are valid, and it speaks to the way I am sure a lot of people are feeling, I guess for me it just didn’t add to my experience reading the book. I feel like Rooney shines the most when she is examining how humans interact with one another and how we see ourselves. The biting conversations between the lovers were the most interesting to me (but for the love of god I need quotes and paragraph breaks). Those pieces are always the most illuminating. And at the end of the day no matter how you feel about Rooney I think we can all agree she isn’t going anywhere…

#SallyRooney #BeautifulWorldWhereAreYou #LiteraryFiction #AlwaysReading #Bookstagram #ContemporaryFiction #ilovereading