BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU
by Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney faced a huge challenge in writing her next book after Normal People, the bestseller published in 2018 that won the British Book Award for Book of the Year and was made into a mini-series on Hulu in 2020. I think Beautiful World, Where Are You is even better than Normal People.
Set in Ireland, Rooney lays out the story of Alice and Eileen who have been best friends since college and who, because their lives have taken such different turns, find themselves communicating to each other entirely through emails. Rooney tells a large part of the story through this email correspondence, which, amazingly, works. The emails are witty and honest and heartbreaking and lovely. Eileen works at a literary magazine but wants to be a writer. Miserable after a recent breakup, she turns to Simon, her childhood friend who is always there for her. Alice, who has achieved great success as a writer but who lives as a recluse, begins a relationship with Felix, a warehouse worker. Just as I began to wonder whether the characters would ever get together, the four of them spend a weekend together. Scenes from that weekend with Alice and Felix and Eileen and Simon will remain in my memory forever. The two women force each other to plumb the depths of their relationship. Felix plays the honest observer who tells it like he sees it. And Eileen is forced to confront her deepest fears as she and Simon become a couple again.
Among Rooney’s many gifts, she writes wonderfully nuanced, believable relationships between her characters. Beautiful World will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading it. Don’t miss this one. You’ll love it. (Liz)
NOT MY CUP OF TEA
It’s not often that my mom and I disagree about a book. But when we do, it seems important to share that with you. Or else why have a book review with two editors? To clarify, I didn’t hate Beautiful World. I just found myself so strongly annoyed while reading it, that I’m labeling it “not my cup of tea.”
Rooney writes masterfully edgy, modern romance novels. I loved her previous two books. Even in Beautiful World, I enjoyed the plot between two best friends and the men they like. But in between the chapters, which contain the plot, Rooney includes an email exchange between the two girls. In the emails, the girls discuss whether writing fiction can be condoned in a world that needs so much concrete help in so many areas, from poverty to climate change to the pandemic. To me, the emails feel like Rooney is working out her own contradictory feelings about her profession when the world is in crisis on so many fronts. I feel that if she wanted to explore that issue, she could have done it more cleverly—instead of using chapters and chapters of essays posing as fiction. I honestly can’t say, ‘Don’t read this,’ because it’s a good read. But her use of the email device irked me. (Lily)
