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

Didn't get all the hyper about this one.

Reviewed in Australia on 15 September 2021

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9 people found this helpful

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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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Danger Mouse

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

Reviewed in Australia on 30 September 2021

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2 people found this helpful

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Hewy

Beautiful World

Reviewed in Australia on 15 October 2021

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Self-absorbed, self-indulgent.

The first half of the book was ‘scatty’ - characterisations very mixed up and hard to discern.

Uncontrolled.

Eventually the four main characters evolved, but as a reader my feelings about each constantly changed. As they changed? I don’t know.

Sadly Sally, I can’t recommend your new book.

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Two quarters of a whole

Reviewed in Australia on 12 February 2022

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I enjoyed the intimate nature of this book and the way perspectives can be shaped by the characters' observations and disclosures. No one can really know anyone else unless we are privy to their inner dialogues, however reliable those actually are. Eileen and Alice are two seemingly troubled young women, who rely to a perhaps unhealthy degree on each other and the validation of their partners, Simon and Felix. But one is left wondering - are the male characters not similarly troubled and angst-ridden? Felix reveals as much in his own straightforward way. Simon, though, comes off as a saintly caricature. I feel this book would have been even better if all four characters were afforded the same interior perspectives granted to Alice and Eileen. The novel could still maintain its elusiveness - Alice and Eileen are still able to surpise and shock each other when they actually meet in person. Giving Simon and Felix inner lives could have yielded a richer exploration of character and motivation without overwhelming the narrative or wrecking its sense of the unknowables and multitudes we all possess and for the most part guard. StilI, I was utterly absorbed throughout.

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Liz Coffey

Awful book

Reviewed in Australia on 10 November 2021

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I couldn't even finish it! The characters were all unlikable and self indulgent, especially the two females. Plus nothing happened.......boring non-story.

3 people found this helpful

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Tara L. Vigouroux

Same same, but not different

Reviewed in Australia on 8 January 2022

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I really enjoyed Sally Rooney’s last two novels but this one just annoyed me. I was thinking “here we go again”. Another bunch of adults who can’t seem to articulate their thoughts or what they want. Back and forth it just got tiresome. Fingers crossed her next novel moves away from this storyline.

One person found this helpful

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Janette Sheen

Absorbing, thoughtful with superb observations of both people and their surroundings

Reviewed in Australia on 13 December 2021

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In my reading, this is a book that not only explores relationships and their meaning but various approaches the ‘30 somethings’ take to the issues in living and in the world at large.

About two thirds of the way into the book I became so absorbed in what Sally Rooney was saying that I didn’t even pick up the phone when it rang

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