Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: Beautiful World, Where Are You

Top positive review

Doesn’t stray far from the author’s other two novels

Reviewed in Australia on 30 September 2021

If you are a fan of Irish millennial author, Sally Rooney, and her other two novels, Conversation with friends, and, Normal people, you are probably in for a treat. That is, unless you felt that these two works said everything you wanted hear on love, friendship and living as an intellectual, hip, 20 something in Ireland in our current times. All in all, the latest novel is an easy read. The style is economical and lean, like a contemporary Hemingway. It probably plays to Rooney’s strength in not straying to far thematically or narratively from Rooney’s other works. Worth a read.

2 people found this helpful

Top critical review

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Didn't get all the hyper about this one.

Reviewed in Australia on 15 September 2021

My first taste of Sally Rooney and sadly, probably my last. I didn't enjoy this book at all. I found it long winded and aimless (I feel like I was missing the point of it all?) Characters were obnoxious and not even likeable so I struggled to take to any of them. Those long winded emails were a drag to read! Started losing patience halfway in, and it didn't get any better. Ended up skimming the rest just to finish it. Here's a quick summary - Four people: they like each other, don't like each other, are intimate, then not intimate, and somewhat depressed. And that's it. Ending didn't offer any resolve or bring anything new.

9 people found this helpful

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From Australia

Geraldine

Well, Thank God That's Over!

Reviewed in Australia on 16 November 2021

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I did not enjoy this book. I struggled to finish it. While there were many engaging passages, I found the long - winded ruminations on art, beauty, God etc. just so pretentious and unconvincing. And the characters didn't feel quite real. And the lengthy descriptions of everyday actions seemed irrelevant and pointless. The dialogues - do people actually talk like that? Do young people write emails? It all seemed so unnatural and staged. Very disappointing.

4 people found this helpful

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Rudo

Soo good and yet soo bad

Reviewed in Australia on 13 December 2021

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An arduous read, with commentary that doesn't serve to advance the plot at all. When its good though its good

One person found this helpful

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ROBERT WILKES

Intentional difficulties?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 September 2021

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Sally Rooney undoubtedly has talent but the lack of paragraphs, punctuation and identification of the speakers and authors of the famous emails seems provocative if not narcissistic. Will her next novel follow e e cummings and abandon capitals? It is even more ironic in that one of the heroines seems to work as a copy-editor.
That gripe aside, I was interested enough in the characters to finish the book, which is more than I could with ‘Conversations with Friends’. I was rewarded by the signs that the gloomy pronouncement “Traditional marriage was obviously not fit for purpose and almost ubiquitously ended in one kind of failure or another” did not prevent an ending in which marriage or something like it may be a possibility. If this had not been the case I might have agreed with another reviewer that: “if such work passes for ordinary in Dublin in that case poor Ireland”.
‘Normal People’ was brilliant in that it portrayed some of the issues of an Ireland I can recognise. I have no great interest in the doings of this solipsistic clique.

14 people found this helpful

L. Bowens

Just OK

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 September 2021

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I couldn't wait to get my hands on the new Sally Rooney novel and have enjoyed it during my commute each day.

However, the four characters started to really grate on me, and at one moment I thought how ridiculous it was that the two female protagonists email each other with a lot of self-indulgent rubbish about philosophy and politics. It was readable and ended fairly well, but not a patch on Rooney's two previous novels.

16 people found this helpful

Tom

It's ok.....

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 September 2021

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I was a big fan of NP and CWF and had very high expectations for this release. Having finished in a day, It is absorbing, however I felt that these are all characters we have seen before in the previous 3 books (including Mr Salary) with similar political views and consequently I felt I knew them already and had a pretty good idea what would happen. I was therefore disappointed that it felt predictable and left the usual frustrations with Sally's characters inability to interact with people. I don't feel in a hurry to re-read it again (unlike NP).

9 people found this helpful

Piguel

Just not that good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 September 2021

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What did I like about this novel? Racking my brains and nothing really comes to mind. The long winded emails about late stage capitalism were like being made to read somebodies A Level homework - and I say that as someone with a degree in politics. I had to just start skipping through those segments as it went on.

Many of the characters felt like Frankenstein’s monster-esque assembled parts of other characters in other SR novels. It all felt familiar and not in a charming way. The sexual dynamics of submission and the continual will they/won’t they of every romantic lead. Also, the thinly veiled attempt to use the Alice character to display the authors own experience of fame and success in the same field were banal and self indulgent. We get it, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be, you tell us in every interview you give.

I reread NP and CWF more than once and enjoyed them, barely got to the end of this novel invested even slightly in the outcomes for each character. The happily ever after for Eileen felt like a very unexpected and saccharine ending and not at all what we are used to in her other works.

All in all, not a big fan of this one.

5 people found this helpful

Henry James

A look at modern relationships but I found myself struggling to engage with the characters

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 December 2021

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Sally Rooney is very good at writing about human interactions, but I found myself not really caring about the characters in this book and the story didn’t really seem to go anywhere.

It would not take many words to write about the plot, but I won’t do this as it would spoil it for people who haven’t read the book.

There are four main characters and they are Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon.

I was more interested in reading about the protagonists in Normal People and wanting them to succeed as a couple.

In this story, I didn’t really care if Alice and Felix could sustain their relationship, or Eileen and Simon could do the same.

On some occasions it was difficult to follow as the story jumped from one situation to another.

There were also long sections of the book covering the written communications between the two friends: Alice and Eileen. Here Alice and Eileen grapple with world issues and their worries. I found some of these too long.

However, I think Rooney is good when writing dialogue between characters. You can visualise the scene and get an understanding of what each person is feeling.

Alice is an author, and you wonder how much Rooney has drawn on her own experiences when coming up with this character.

This book is a look at modern relationships and the difficulties young people face today during the pandemic. I found myself struggling to engage with the characters though. Not Rooney’s best work to date.

One person found this helpful

Black Eyed Boy

Slightly underwhelmed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 December 2021

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This is my first foray into a Sally Rooney novel and it was just ...okay. I found the characters a bit irritating especially Felix who was rude and antagonistic. There are some lovely passages and meaningful conversations but it didn't grip me liked I'd hoped. It started well but it droned on and lost it's way a bit. I found it interesting that the most deep or meaningful conversations were when they were sent as emails. I suppose we live in that era where we worship social media and celebrities and try and make our own lives just as dramatic! Which is was the author's probable intent to try and ask the question of what is important in our lives? Simon was kind and caring but then in a drunken exchange later on in the book we discover all of the characters insecurities and anxieties. I did enjoy this contemporary novel it's one I'd possibly return to. However like I have said it was infuriating at times. 3 stars.

One person found this helpful

Elizabeth

Really wanted to like this but…

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 October 2021

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Sally Rooney writes the most beautifully crafted sentences. I struggled with the book overall, however- it seemed weirdly static, with a complete lack of forward momentum. Narrative point of view was strange and alienating. Lots of sex but all of it seemed passive and passionless. I suspect all of this is deliberate, that the reader’s experience of the book is supposed to mirror the characters’ experience their lives as static and alienating. It made it a hard read, however.

3 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2021

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed Sally Rooney's other novels, so with all the hype around this one, I was expecting to be blown away. However, I became bored by it. The characters were more like self absorbed teenagers than in their thirties, they weren't particularly likeable so I didn't care about them. They all suffered with varying degrees of narcissism, and unravelling their inner dialogues seemed to be the main focus, there's not really a story to get absorbed in. I like her writing style though, intelligent and insightful. The lack of speech marks etc didn't bother me, I quite like the flow that creates when reading.

3 people found this helpful

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