Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

91 reviews

lghrndn's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Grief, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Death of parent

sfbookgirl's review against another edition

challenging mysterious 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

It’s the book of the season and it’s become a brand of its own 😆 It took me ages to get through Rooney’s newest release which is most likely due to the fact that I was super busy and had no time to read. Beautiful World, Where Are You revolves around Alice and her friend Eileen who are good friends but live in different cities. We learn about their separate lives through both their individual narratives and between email correspondences with, of course, no quotation marks as it’s a Rooney book after all. 

 

This is definitely one of those books that you will have to read for yourself to decide. Did I like it? Yes? Will I read her next novel? Probably not. Rooney's newest novel is a book that talks about nothing and everything at once. I resonated with the characters' inner, panicked thoughts about the world’s environmental crisis and found it funny that this book is incredibly autobiographical. I’ve always thought Rooney was made to be some sort of mystery with her lack of social media presence and the vague events reflected in her novels. While it’s clear that Alice’s character is Rooney, I found that I learned so much more about her and yet nothing at the same time in her newest book. So there you have it, Rooney is still quite the mysterious woman. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness and Sexual content

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Self harm

questingnotcoasting's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Drug use

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Pregnancy

alicefranko's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Death of parent

Rooney’s best work yet!

majeczka_'s review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

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

3.25

Unfortunately pretty underwhelming, even a bit disappointing.
The main characters were boring, the very long emails (beauty? Jesus? bronze age???) were unnecessarily pseudo-deep and don't get me started on the many many many sex scenes that did not bring anything to the story!
I'm a big fan of Conversations with friends and liked normal people very much, but this story lacked the rawness and the effortless flow that I loved so much about Rooney's other novels.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Mental illness

Moderate: Drug use, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, and Blood

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Cancer, and Bullying

isioneill22's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

Moderate: Death of parent and Self harm

lani's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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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Content Warnings

Minor: Death of parent and Mental illness

lenanin99's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

To be honest this was my least favourite book by the author. I was a big fan of normal people and conversations with friends but for some reason this book didn’t really do it for me like that. 
Still it was an interesting read. 
I must admit that in the beginning it was quite hard for me to really get hooked and continue reading. Luckily towards the end of the book when the four main characters interacted with each other in different settings it got extremely interesting and intense and I could not put the book down. 
I also don’t really know how I feel about the email portions. For some reason they felt unnatural at times and disturbed the reading flow.
After all I am still very much a huge fan of Rooney’s writing and would definitely recommend her work!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness

Minor: Death of parent

tigerkind's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective tense 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

4.5

I really like Sally Rooney's books and this was no exception. Anyone interested in modern relationships will surely enjoy this. The book touches on many topics that are relevant right now – even the pandemic is mentioned, even though it rather felt like an afterthought. However, it seems Rooney is now well aware of the expectations her readers have going in and consciously caters to them. While the previous books felt rather raw and thought-provoking, this sometimes was almost "prêt-à-penser". 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Toxic friendship and Toxic relationship

Minor: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Infertility, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Self harm, Sexism, and Suicidal thoughts

stevie's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Mental illness

Moderate: Death of parent, Drug use, and Misogyny