Reviews with content warning for Pandemic/Epidemic - Lume frumoasă, unde ești

I have absolutely no idea what to think about this book… there were a few good thoughts and passages (and many of those came off as quite pretentious), but none of them were more than very simple mentions, only brushing the actual topic. Also, the sex scenes were not my thing. They generally felt weird, especially when paired with the pseudo-catholic thought experiments about Jesus. And since I’m not the biggest fan of smut, a book where there is about 50/50 sex scenes and actual story (if you could call it that) doesn’t work for me. All in all, simply not my kind of story :/

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geoalice23's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

ester285's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

4.0

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astrangewind's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

Sally Rooney's storytelling style - rooted deeply in the inane details of every day life - becomes even more compelling in Beautiful World. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are each deeply flawed characters with deeply flawed relationships with themselves and each other; it's this complexity that makes them lovable.

The "plot" (some might argue there is none) is interrupted with emails between Alice and Eileen, which serve primarily as the author's own philosophical projection. At first, I thought this was a little bit much, but by the end of the book I appreciated these vignettes as additional characterization of Alice and Eileen, and Felix and Simon by proxy.

I loved these messy characters and their messy lives, and I rooted for them to the end.

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