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alida_f's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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
2.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Mental illness
lucyeanderson's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
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
5.0
it definitely would appear that i give 5 stars out left right and centre, maybe because i honestly get emotionally attached to almost every book i read - but this one was truly a million out of ten. i’m concerned that sally rooney may actually be able to see into my brain, because particularly eileen was one of the most relatable characters i’ve ever experienced. i loved seeing the relationships of the two couples develop - i really rooted for them and the realistic way the progression of their relationships was detailed. felix and simon were also two ends of a spectrum of men that any young woman can relate to - i saw them in my own friends and partners visually and mentally. i also think alice and eileen’s friendship is one of the first time i’ve truly seen a long distance friendship accurately portrayed in a new adult book. it made me think of my own best friend, and sparked a two hour phone call when we hadn’t spoken in weeks. the email chapters were some of my favourites, and their discussion of society, history and religion really furthered the plot while providing an interesting and attention-holding intermission. it made me think on a lot of subjects more deeply, such as what it is to be a young woman in the current times and the priorities i have in my life. it showed me that prioritising loving and spending time with others is not a bad thing, but is rather something to aspire to. this book means a lot to me, and to think of a world without sally rooneys writing is something i’m not prepared to do. as always adore adore adore.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pregnancy, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Infidelity
Minor: Death of parent and Drug use
risemini's review
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
fast-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
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Medical content, Infidelity, Drug use, Classism, Blood, Alcoholism, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
gaygothiccowboy's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity and Sexual content
jadziaaudrey's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Cursing, and Alcohol
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Gaslighting, Infidelity, and Abandonment
Minor: Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, and Pregnancy
sharkemoji's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
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
3.25
I'm not quite sure how exactly I felt about this book. I found the characters hard to like and annoying and the relationships and plot to be very predictable and boring. The quasi-intellectualism in the emails between Alice and Eileen was a bit annoying and I found myself zoning out during some of the more obnoxious moments. But, it felt true to character. The relationship between Felix and Alice was not only more compelling but more charged than whatever happened between Simon and Eileen. The subtle dynamics of power and control were very interesting, but I did find myself more interested in Felix than Alice for many of those moments. Simon, I found to be grating and annoying and I disliked nearly everything about his character. Maybe if we had had some moments with his interiority I would have felt differently but I really wanted to shake Eileen so hard and say she can do better than this weirdo loser creep.
I HATED the fact that the epilogue is about COVID. Maybe if I had read this book during the height of the pandemic I would have felt connected to the characters' feelings but so soon after I was just annoyed and tired of it.
Some things I would have wanted to see more of was Alice's mental health struggles which are constantly mentioned by other characters but not obvious within her internal dialogue.The moment where she says she wants to kill herself felt a bit out of nowhere and the fact that she has been on anti-depressants apparently the whole time without Felix or the reader or anyone knowing was just... I was confused by where any of this was coming from. Actually, that whole final fight between Alice and Eileen was a bit much for me. I would have been more interested in having that moment earlier in the novel and then seeing how they actually work through that instead of the jump to so SO far later. and once again I was just annoyed by Simon the whole time. I also would have loved to see some more actual rumination on class differences, with the whole Alice being a millionaire and Felix working at a package facility. It gets close but Alice, Eileen, and Simon never recognize the differences between themselves and the working class. (Besides a moment of Eileen arguing that technically she is working class because she has a job... which... is certainly A Take...)
So ok maybe I actually didn't like it. Maybe that is what I am realizing right now. But it was still a GOOD book with some really amazing lines about desire and love and depression and relationships and despite the pretentiousness of Alice and Eileen's emails, there were many moments of really impactful reflections on life and the human experience that I enjoyed. Rooney is really a great writer in terms of actual quality this was fantastic. But just not for me.
I HATED the fact that the epilogue is about COVID. Maybe if I had read this book during the height of the pandemic I would have felt connected to the characters' feelings but so soon after I was just annoyed and tired of it.
Some things I would have wanted to see more of was Alice's mental health struggles which are constantly mentioned by other characters but not obvious within her internal dialogue.
So ok maybe I actually didn't like it. Maybe that is what I am realizing right now. But it was still a GOOD book with some really amazing lines about desire and love and depression and relationships and despite the pretentiousness of Alice and Eileen's emails, there were many moments of really impactful reflections on life and the human experience that I enjoyed. Rooney is really a great writer in terms of actual quality this was fantastic. But just not for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Mental illness and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Infidelity and Drug use
zara89's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Infidelity
Minor: Death of parent, Death, Blood, Animal cruelty, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, and Suicide
onion's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-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
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Mental illness, and Infidelity
Moderate: Suicide, Alcohol, Drug use, Abandonment, Death of parent, and Self harm
Minor: Pregnancy
laynie_rearick's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Sexual content
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, and Pregnancy
Minor: Self harm
james1star's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Oh my goodness!!! Personally this book was phenomenal, I absolutely loved it! Another incredible novel by Sally Rooney.
I’ll start the review with my cons (if you can call them that because some are also pros) but my main irk I don’t think I’ll ever get over with reading Rooney is her lack of quotation marks - hun, isn’t it basic grammar?? Maybe not but I just get irritated about this - which is annoying and once again requires a lot of ‘she/he/they said/murmured/etc…’ which does get very repetitive as you’re reading and also at times you don’t exactly know which character is talking but for the most part it’s decipherable. Likewise, in beautiful world, Rooney somewhat mixes up the ‘correct’ way of presenting speech (as in using separated lines) with combining speech and narration in huge and I mean HUGE paragraphs carrying over page after page which is quite hard to get your head around.
Moving away from these to actual book content, I do feel that the sex elements are in some places overkill and this goes for other topics and definitely gets repetitive. Personally I would maybe prefer some parts to have been omitted as very similar. Additionally, this book is de-scrip-tive (say it with emphasis huns) and very very very (yep it calls for three ‘very’s) heavy/dense. I’ll get onto why I like this in a sec but I did find it hard to read in places and a bit tiresome where I felt I was forcing myself to read huge passages just to get on with the narrative but maybe not enjoying the process. Also unlike ‘normal people’ and more like ‘conversations with friends’ I don’t think I could read it all in one go (or at least enjoy doing so) because of the density. As previously mentions, some topics are discussed a bit too much especially religion with recurring conversations but it wasn’t off-putting.
Now to the good bits. These characters I did root for. That’s not to say they’re unproblematic and certainly do things that made me want to get inside the pages and shake/hit/yell at them but overall they’re ‘good’ people with a variety of struggles and strifes in their lives. A little bias but the queer additions I did like (around page 270-80 I was so near to giving up on the main relationships and going full on gay shipping… but alas, I didn’t) and these were nice to read. Following on, the characters all deal with many things and the book acknowledges a lot of topics including: religion, sex (oof a big one), mental health, suicidal thoughts, toxic relationships, employment, celebrity culture, socialist ideals and many more. Mentioning that last point I will add they way Rooney let’s the characters discuss communism/socialism/politics sorta themes is done the best in beautiful world - via letters between Alice and Eileen - and most natural I feel.
Another major theme is the idea of what is the meaning of life in essence and how we’re all searching for a beautiful world. Side note but the discussions on ‘what is beauty?’ and other similar topics is really lovely to read and very insightful and makes you think for sure. But main point again that has really stuck with me is how… it’s so hard to articulate what I’m thinking right now. But basically the characters are discussing how there’s many issues in the world and these are BIG global problems e.g. poverty, world hunger, climate change, political minefields and lots more. But then at the end of the day… or at the end of one’s life as mentioned in one of the emails, what we really cling to is our friends and family, who we love/loved/missed out on loving, those who’s lives we touched and in what ways, how they touched ours and all these ‘little’ relationships and events that seem so minimal or unimportant in the grand scheme of problems/discussions facing the world but then when we add up each individual’s lived experiences (or the human condition in a more philosophical outlook) they actually end up amounting to so much more. Think about it… if we combine every single person’s seemingly irrelevant experiences together they obviously add up to something huge. I don’t know but Yhh this ideology and discussions really stuck with me. How all of us in search of a beautiful world as a whole should maybe look more for beauty in our personal worlds which would then creates a ‘whole’ beautiful existence. I don’t know what I am trotting on about anymore but this book definitely make me think about this and the way the email exchanges go off on tangents and rambles is so so magical and ‘human’ if you like.
Another thing I did really like was the descriptive nature of this novel. Whilst it does get a bit too much in places, I do feel there is a reason for this. Rooney really makes us feel so connected to the characters and it’s hard to realise at the end of the day there’s a page between you and them because it’s written so descriptively that you can image them being real. More so then all her previous characters and previous conversations. Likewise, I sense this is a more mature book compared to her previous works due in part to some themes but also her growth as a writer. Also the characters are all in their thirties as opposed to early twenties so naturally there will be more complex characters in a way. And complex they are.
The layout of the book I also really loved where we follow a third person narration of what’s going on in one of the ‘couples’ lives (Alice and Felix OR Eileen and Simon) interjected by email correspondences between Alice and Eileen which is in the first person. I really and I mean really loved these emails so much. They just seemed so real and Yhh… perfection. This follows up until they all meet where we have some chapters just narrating the plot ending with two emails set in the ‘present’ during a Covid—19 lockdown. Some reviews don’t like this addition and feel it’s an unnecessary add-on but I actually loved it. Before the emails the characters are in a somewhat precarious but happy state and then this is confirmed at the end. For me it was the best ending of Rooney’s previous books - I wasn’t left annoyed for once and just genuinely happy I guess.
I could literally talk on and on and on about this book so I think I’ve covered all grounds I wanted to !?! But Yhh I would totes recommend - a clear 4.75 stars from me. Thank you Sally xx can’t wait for more
I’ll start the review with my cons (if you can call them that because some are also pros) but my main irk I don’t think I’ll ever get over with reading Rooney is her lack of quotation marks - hun, isn’t it basic grammar?? Maybe not but I just get irritated about this - which is annoying and once again requires a lot of ‘she/he/they said/murmured/etc…’ which does get very repetitive as you’re reading and also at times you don’t exactly know which character is talking but for the most part it’s decipherable. Likewise, in beautiful world, Rooney somewhat mixes up the ‘correct’ way of presenting speech (as in using separated lines) with combining speech and narration in huge and I mean HUGE paragraphs carrying over page after page which is quite hard to get your head around.
Moving away from these to actual book content, I do feel that the sex elements are in some places overkill and this goes for other topics and definitely gets repetitive. Personally I would maybe prefer some parts to have been omitted as very similar. Additionally, this book is de-scrip-tive (say it with emphasis huns) and very very very (yep it calls for three ‘very’s) heavy/dense. I’ll get onto why I like this in a sec but I did find it hard to read in places and a bit tiresome where I felt I was forcing myself to read huge passages just to get on with the narrative but maybe not enjoying the process. Also unlike ‘normal people’ and more like ‘conversations with friends’ I don’t think I could read it all in one go (or at least enjoy doing so) because of the density. As previously mentions, some topics are discussed a bit too much especially religion with recurring conversations but it wasn’t off-putting.
Now to the good bits. These characters I did root for. That’s not to say they’re unproblematic and certainly do things that made me want to get inside the pages and shake/hit/yell at them but overall they’re ‘good’ people with a variety of struggles and strifes in their lives. A little bias but the queer additions I did like (around page 270-80 I was so near to giving up on the main relationships and going full on gay shipping… but alas, I didn’t) and these were nice to read. Following on, the characters all deal with many things and the book acknowledges a lot of topics including: religion, sex (oof a big one), mental health, suicidal thoughts, toxic relationships, employment, celebrity culture, socialist ideals and many more. Mentioning that last point I will add they way Rooney let’s the characters discuss communism/socialism/politics sorta themes is done the best in beautiful world - via letters between Alice and Eileen - and most natural I feel.
Another major theme is the idea of what is the meaning of life in essence and how we’re all searching for a beautiful world. Side note but the discussions on ‘what is beauty?’ and other similar topics is really lovely to read and very insightful and makes you think for sure. But main point again that has really stuck with me is how… it’s so hard to articulate what I’m thinking right now. But basically the characters are discussing how there’s many issues in the world and these are BIG global problems e.g. poverty, world hunger, climate change, political minefields and lots more. But then at the end of the day… or at the end of one’s life as mentioned in one of the emails, what we really cling to is our friends and family, who we love/loved/missed out on loving, those who’s lives we touched and in what ways, how they touched ours and all these ‘little’ relationships and events that seem so minimal or unimportant in the grand scheme of problems/discussions facing the world but then when we add up each individual’s lived experiences (or the human condition in a more philosophical outlook) they actually end up amounting to so much more. Think about it… if we combine every single person’s seemingly irrelevant experiences together they obviously add up to something huge. I don’t know but Yhh this ideology and discussions really stuck with me. How all of us in search of a beautiful world as a whole should maybe look more for beauty in our personal worlds which would then creates a ‘whole’ beautiful existence. I don’t know what I am trotting on about anymore but this book definitely make me think about this and the way the email exchanges go off on tangents and rambles is so so magical and ‘human’ if you like.
Another thing I did really like was the descriptive nature of this novel. Whilst it does get a bit too much in places, I do feel there is a reason for this. Rooney really makes us feel so connected to the characters and it’s hard to realise at the end of the day there’s a page between you and them because it’s written so descriptively that you can image them being real. More so then all her previous characters and previous conversations. Likewise, I sense this is a more mature book compared to her previous works due in part to some themes but also her growth as a writer. Also the characters are all in their thirties as opposed to early twenties so naturally there will be more complex characters in a way. And complex they are.
The layout of the book I also really loved where we follow a third person narration of what’s going on in one of the ‘couples’ lives (Alice and Felix OR Eileen and Simon) interjected by email correspondences between Alice and Eileen which is in the first person. I really and I mean really loved these emails so much. They just seemed so real and Yhh… perfection. This follows up until they all meet where we have some chapters just narrating the plot ending with two emails set in the ‘present’ during a Covid—19 lockdown. Some reviews don’t like this addition and feel it’s an unnecessary add-on but I actually loved it. Before the emails the characters are in a somewhat precarious but happy state and then this is confirmed at the end. For me it was the best ending of Rooney’s previous books - I wasn’t left annoyed for once and just genuinely happy I guess.
I could literally talk on and on and on about this book so I think I’ve covered all grounds I wanted to !?! But Yhh I would totes recommend - a clear 4.75 stars from me. Thank you Sally xx can’t wait for more
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Sexual content
Moderate: Classism, Drug use, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, and Infidelity