Alma Rodriguez

A00106870

Beautiful world, where are you by Sally Rooney, 2021

After being recognized by many as the voice of millennials, for her reflection of relationships

and conversation between characters in their 20’s in her past books, Sally Rooney arrives

with her new book, ‘‘Beautiful world, where are you’’. She introduces us again with her

peculiar narrative style, to some characters somewhat difficult to understand in some

decisions, kind of unadapted even; and there are many reflections on the world in which they

have had to live.

On one side, we will know Alice (a novelist of success, as well as the author) who has taken a

break from her public life for her mental health, Sally use this character to talk about literary

success, to reflect on how she deals with that and to make a self-critique of contemporary

literature. e.g. (37). On the other side, we’ll meet Eileen, her best friend, who has just moved

to Dublin with a job that is not what she dreamed of when she was little; and we’ll get to

know her through the very special relationship she has had with her friend since she was 15,

Simon.

Sally describes their lives and relationships as if she were also a spectator of the story and its

characters, but we will also be able to meet the two protagonists thanks to the emails that are

exchanged between them throughout the book. Some posts will reflect on the friendship they

maintain, their different ways of dealing with love and sex, their different conceptions of

beauty and the figure of God.

Comments

Obviously, I loved it. But I want to talk a little bit about some of the differences between this

and her previous books. It's very clear to me from this book that Sally Rooney is only getting

better as a writer. I will say that if books like ‘‘Norman people’’ or ‘‘Conversations with

friends’’ are known to have little plot, this one has much less.

This follows the trend of celebrity’s other books where not much happens externally, but the

inner lives of the characters are so complex that that is the plot.

One of the things that I think was really interesting about this book was that the big events of

these characters mental health, those things all happened before the start of this book, which I

thought was such the best choice, because I feel like so many books are written about people

in crisis, and few books explore so expertly what life is like after crisis and how a breakdown

can truly affect your whole life and how it can really change the way that you think.