Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Beautiful World, Where Are You

Beautiful World, Where Are You is just as heart wrenching and beautiful as Sally Rooney’s previous novels. I gave this one a 4 star rating only for personal reasons: Rooney’s characters tend to be challenging to fall into a rhythm with and the pace changes a bit throughout the book, but I think that means it mimics reality so well. I always have a hard time rating her books. But I love it. I love the ending. I love and am frustrated by being held at a distance from her characters, having to decipher what they mean by their words and actions as they decipher them, themselves. BWWAY has so many quotes and pages that I cannot stop thinking about, my phone is littered with pictures of pages and I plan to copy them into a notebook. <33

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, he said. She rolled her shoulders luxuriously against the bedsheets.
Tell me everything, she said.” (p. 190)

Content Warnings

writingcaia's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’m not even sure how I’m going to review this book.

What can I say?

It lies heavily on the characters or solely, to be honest, as if by living their lives, dealing with their internal and external struggles, the way of the world, the way of people, their meetings, their encounters, their love for each other however crooked and moulded by their own fallibility and fears, they carry the plot. And, they carry it wonderfully, insightfully, painfully, sometimes - for me the also fallible and emotionally pained reader - annoyingly, but without a doubt very candidly and passionately.
Maybe this is not enough for some people, maybe you didn’t or can’t, unlike me see so much of yourself in the characters - me especially in both Alice and Eileen, with their sadness at the world and the people, Eileen with such consuming fear and self-destructiveness and Alice with such crippling anxiety.
The narrative is interesting alternating between third person, with the most beautiful writing that can really put you in there seeing everything as if it was a movie set or the real deal - you know? -, and the first person by way of emails Alice and Eileen exchange between them. Also, pretty good queer representation without being anything about it.
I understand why this author is as hyped as she is, and why, still, there are many who don’t understand that hype. But, as you can clearly imagine after this review, I’m going to devour the rest of her work.
One last note indeed proving how much this book meant to me and how much I related to it, I never mark books, but there was so much I didn’t want to forget, so much I may want to go back to, that I finally made use of those tiny post it thingies and marked the hell out of it.
That’s it folks.

Content Warnings

pulpandprose's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

pvpedreqm's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

y0sh1's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

another enjoyable novel about people being people by sally rooney, which is exactly what i was looking for at the moment. a bit harder to follow than her other books, but i feel like she included more of her own experiences in this one, and tried opening the world to more perspectives within one novel.

Content Warnings

abbruzzese's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional lighthearted reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

the worst of sally rooney's books, imo, but they all go the same way: miscommunication, anger, arguments, self-pity, treating each other poorly, shitty parents. rinse and repeat.

normal people was excusable because most of it takes place before anyone's brains have finished developing, but this time it's real, full-grown adults. alice, felix, eileen—i can't stand any of them. simon is the only character i have a shred of patience for.

Content Warnings

issyd23's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Wish sally would just write a collection of essays already - the extended emails were unenjoyable to read. Also hated the men in the book 2⭐️

Content Warnings

zeta's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

More...