Beautiful World, Where are you

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Rooney, Sally, Adult Book / Fiction / General / Rooney, Sally
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Westgate Branch

"Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young--but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?"--Amazon

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A Beautiful Book, a Beautiful World submitted by sns101 on July 12, 2022, 9:39am BWWAU captures the human experience of looking for beauty in despair, and sometimes finding it and sometimes not. I never thought I’d be interested in a book about “the meaning of life,” it sounds too boring. But this is the most beautiful depiction of humanity that I‘ve read, of searching for life’s meaning in our modern, sometimes terrible world. I’m a better human being for having read it and shared in the experience. There’s also something magnificent about two women starring in this search for life’s meaning, while their romantic interests (men) play secondary roles. Eileen and Alice are extremely well developed characters, and Rooney illustrates these women’s deep intelligence as well as their character flaws and doesn’t punish them for either. Fans of The Idiot by Elif Batuman and smart, deeply feeling heroines will adore this book.

Best of Sally Rooney's books so far submitted by emroon on July 17, 2022, 3:41pm I like this book the best of all Sally Rooney's books, I think most likely because it had the happiest ending. Rooney does such a great job of capturing the emotions and angst of being a young person and not knowing what is going on in your life and in the world around you.

Disappointing submitted by zixyxuan on July 20, 2022, 11:33am I have been in a mini-reading slump and was really excited to try a Sally Rooney given all the hype around Normal People (including the mini-series on Hulu) but was sorely disappointed by this book. The writing style felt very aloof, which made me feel very nonchalant toward all of the characters. I didn't particularly like Felix and Alice's relationship and spent a majority of the book trying to find one redeeming quality about their relationship. On the other hand, I enjoyed seeing the complexity of Eileen and Simon's friendship/attraction toward each other; however, many of the major plot points that shift their relationship dynamics over the course of the books just felt very bland to me. And maybe that is Rooney's typical writing style and allure, but it certainly does not appeal to me.

At this point, should I still continue to read Normal People? Are there better books to get me out of these reading slumps?

Overall rating: 2.5 / 5 Stars

Moody Millennials? This book has 'em! submitted by ekalish92 on July 31, 2022, 11:06am If you're looking for a story about moody Irish 30 year-olds, this is the book for you.

This is one of those stories where no one really has their life together and it's hard to know if you're really meant to be rooting for any of the characters or not. Of the two main relationships portrayed in the book, I was actively hoping for one of the couples to part ways as they were far from a good match. The other relationship was more tolerable but still gave me pause as the word "codependent" kept flashing in my mind every time we picked back up with their plotline. I also felt that the book wrapped up rather suddenly although I can't say I really wanted the story to continue.

All of this being said, the one thing I truly couldn't get over was the lack of quotation marks to indicate dialogue...it made for an unpleasant reading experience so take that for what it is.

Good, not great submitted by courtneyhooper on August 12, 2022, 11:11pm Had I not read her others, this would’ve blown me away. A very good book, nevertheless