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

Reviews tagging 'Abortion'

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

50 reviews

ezzab126's review

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-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

Just like her other two books, this is an emotional and sensitive depiction of everyday life, the mundane. It travels through the characters thought processes to end the arch in a firm and succinct resolution - which is maybe slightly flat and boring compared to the ‘cliffhanger’/‘will they - won’t they’ ending of Normal People. Certainly pretentious and tedious in places but beautiful all the same.

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danajoy's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

This is not my first Sally Rooney. I'm one of the camp who read and loved Normal People (and was a bit too nervous to pick up Conversations with Friends as a result). I really enjoy her dialogue, the way she ignores the conventions so it occurs concurrently to everything else. There isn't much in the way of punctuation and occasionally it can be a but hard to work out who is talking but there is something about it I really like.

BWWAY didn't grab me in the same way that Normal People did. I found the characters pretty pretentious and immature. While the difficulty to communicate emotions felt very understandable for teenagers in this book the cast are almost thirty and feel like they're stuck in the mindset of self-important 20 year olds. The emails they send eachother are very philosophical and felt a bit too long and essay like to me.

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amyford's review

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emotional reflective 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

3.75

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booksandmo's review against another edition

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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

4.0

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rm96's review

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emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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lindseyhall44's review

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emotional 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

5.0

This novel really solidified my love for Sally Rooney’s books, and I can’t wait to finish off the trifecta by reading “conversation with friends.”
“Beautiful World, Where are You?” Follows Alice, Eileen, Felix, and Simon as they explore romantic and platonic relationships throughout adulthood. Alice is a novelist, Eileen works at a literary magazine, Felix is a warehouse employee, and Simons job was explained I just can’t remember:) Each character holds a unique and relatable viewpoint, offering commentary on class and current events with the use email as well as the author’s prose.
For myself, the connection between Alice and Rooney made the read so intriguing, since she is known for her privacy and lack of public announcements. While Alice is NOT a carbon copy of the writer, Rooney intertwined personal beliefs and characteristics within the novel, developing a more meaningful ambience
While this book is not for everyone, I would definitely recommend it for those who love literary fiction and/or character drivers novels.

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storykath's review

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emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-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

4.5

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jayisreading's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

2.25

I think this might be the last time I’m reading a Sally Rooney novel. I’m not too surprised that I didn’t enjoy this, considering that I had lukewarm opinions about Normal People. However, I thought Normal People was interesting enough that reading Beautiful World, Where Are You would be worthwhile.

Reader, I liked BWWAY even less than Normal People. It felt less focused and lacked a particular depth (more on this).

To focus on one positive, I have to commend Rooney for nailing the general vibe of a very specific group of people (in my head, this was primarily college-educated white Millennials) and the way they talk about one’s moral values, the state of culture and society (and how it’s essentially collapsing), relationships, etc. I think it’s fair to say that these existential questions and conversations are bound to happen within such circles, and I won’t critique that. Rooney knows how to write incredibly flawed, imperfect characters that reveal something very human about them through these conversations they have amongst themselves, and it’s done in such a way that suits her writing style.

However, there was something really grating about the four characters in BWWAY that made me roll my eyes every other page. Maybe it was because they almost never talked about anything mundane. Maybe it was all the sex scenes that felt excessive and really didn’t do it for me (and this was an issue I had with Normal People). Maybe it was just the way Rooney presented them at an arm’s distance that, to me, made it harder to connect (to an extent) with the characters because. I think on this line of thought, my issue was that there wasn’t much depth in any of these characters, which is a bit strange, considering how deeply philosophical their conversations get and this book is by no means driven by a plot (because… there isn’t really one). There was something emotionally lacking in these characters that, ultimately, made them come off as pretentious and nothing more. For me, whenever an issue or desire or anything was presented, I would just think, “… okay then,” and expect some exploration of that. That rarely happens, though, and I think this book would have been so much richer and interesting with those details.

I also found the relationships between Simon/Eileen and Alice/Felix really unhealthy and problematic, which… I don’t know, maybe that was the intention, to continue showing the flaws of people. Even the friendship between Eileen and Alice felt really unbalanced at times, which, to Rooney’s credit, there was a brief(ish) acknowledgment and exploring why. Again, it would have been nice to see a deeper exploration that would make all the ruminating in BWWAY more poignant.

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samvansam's review against another edition

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reflective sad tense 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

4.5

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saphirabloom's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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

5.0

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