Book Review

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well, this was my first Rooney book and I had some expectation for it to be a literary masterpiece with well-written characters and no plot in general. I guess it had no plot but it failed in characters for me. For the genre of contemporary and writing a novel with little to no plot, there must be strong characters to pull off.
I was disappointed.
Characters
1.Aileen: She was so obnoxious and petty. She was one of the topper kids in high school who refused to grow up; she topped in college and was exceptional. She failed to secure a good job and blamed it on capitalism. She was not well written. I didn’t get her arc. Perhaps because there was none. I had predicted the ending. I wish we got more to see of her career rather than her relationship with Simon. It would’ve been interesting to see someone like her realize the futility of achievements and intelligence in the workplace and how she dribbled on with her life, her passion and her career. She is also the most immature out of all the characters. I didn’t want to judge her, but I did because she seemed too artificial and swaying on high ground while us mortals are given the task of empathizing with her problems.


2. Simon: I liked him despite his very evident flaws. He was an interesting character and his monologue at the end made me shed a few tears. I was disappointed because we didn’t get much of him. I really wanted to know him and his beliefs. But, the only information in the book we get is from his relationship with Aileen, which was disappointing, since I wanted him to see him as a full-fledged character.

3. Alice: At first, I found Alice to be a bit pretentious. But, she wasn’t obnoxious throughout the story. I realized how deep her hurt grows and could even relate to her a bit. She isn’t perfect, in fact, none of the characters are, but she seems the most real to me. I could relate to her in some sense and I feel others will too. Again, I wanted more of her backstory and warts and all of her functioning. I felt her decisions, even the bad ones, to be relatable. A good character, in all.

4. Felix: I don’t have any strong opinions about him. He was a mixed bag. It seemed he was intentionally put as a character to further Alice’s development and call out on her eccentric behavior. My respect for him grew throughout but again I feel he was just there. He could’ve been more of an interesting character. His work problems could’ve been explored more.


Overall, it was a surface-level exploration of characters and themes. It seems some info-dumping on the writer’s part was done and pieces of white guilt were placed carefully in between without too much suspicion.

I didn’t like the writing style either. Although it was beautifully described, I felt irrelevant details creeping in and the writing was so simple, thought-provoking only at the surface.

I thought this might be a complex character exploration with themes of capitalism, existentialism, climate change, etc. deeply woven into the characters’ journey. Instead, what we got was the writer’s own thoughts on those subjects which were quite contradictory at times.

Also, there were a lot of sex scenes that were too annoying with weird fetishes explored. I couldn’t feel the intimacy anytime. I’m sex-repulsed, so might be biased by the fact. But, I do appreciate good ones like the ones in the TV adaption of Normal People.

Overall, this book wasn’t for me. There were some good moments too which I enjoyed. But, it’s far from the best book written.



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