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Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
52 reviews
hevlav's review against another edition
While I did enjoy some of the more reflective pieces of this, these characters are awful and unloveable. Yes, entirely human, but insufferable in a novel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship
semporina's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Addiction, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Grief, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Dementia, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Vomit
racbuckallew's review against another edition
funny
reflective
sad
medium-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
3.25
mad that after everything we got a pandemic not a foursome
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
theothergrl's review against another edition
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
4.5
Sally Rooney's characters are nothing if not realistic. I felt I was reading about the people in my own life, about the actual stories of ordinary folk. These aren't love stories that swell the heart with big gestures and serendipitous circumstances that have one believing in the miracles of romance. But they are real. The end game is flawed, the relationships are messy, not in the dramatic sense, but ordinarily so. Sally Rooney writes, with good understanding, about the socio-economic factors that play into our interpersonal lives. How class differences can forge oceans between us, how power dynamics in age gaps can be so easy to fall into and so hard to crawl out of. I found it smart, the way she wrote in third person, as an observer, because it really instated the reality of such things. That most of the time they aren't overcome. That, at the end of the day, these are just the normal people we see at the supermarket or catching a train. I appreciated that the most when I finished the book. I felt like I was being told that it's going to be okay, that even though I can't overcome everything, there is still beauty to be found amongst it all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Drug use, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Bullying, Pregnancy, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
lexa's review against another edition
4.25
This book took a bit of time for me to get into… and then I was hooked. Drawn in my the drama and screwed up characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Drug use, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Pregnancy and Sexual content
luciataylor's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The way that this book was written: Alice’s perspective followed with her email to Eileen, and then Eileen’s email back followed by her perspective was unique and enjoyable. Buried in a contemporary novel about two complicated relationships were essays about politics and culture which were very interesting while also indirectly sharing a lot about the characters and the way they view the world. Although the intolerable Felix and icky Simon made the novel hard to get through and the relationships impossible to route for, on my second Sally Rooney book, I have realised that depicting these deeply flawed characters and terrible men in 'situationships' without condemning their behaviour or having any redemption to them is the point of her books. Rooney is actually just brilliant at writing complex (and hateable) characters without explicitly spelling out their actions and words as “bad,” although they are intolerable to read and see women fall for (it is realistic - perhaps why it’s so frustrating) it is interesting to read from the third person instead of living it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship and Emotional abuse
naff_tm's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-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
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Mental illness, and Medical trauma
pmejia's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
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
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Mental illness, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol
Minor: Death, Drug use, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Pregnancy
shaylac's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The characters and their relationships are intriguing, yet there's a sense of self-absorption that can be a tad much. The prose, while occasionally sophisticated, may border on pretentious, and the pacing tends to drag in certain spots.
The exploration of friendship and love carries depth, but it feels like Rooney didn't quite hit the mark. There are glimpses of brilliance, but the overall storytelling lacks the punch I was hoping for. It's a hesitant four stars, acknowledging the highlights amid the imperfections.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Minor: Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, Alcohol, Drug use, Mental illness, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, and Death of parent
booitsnathalie's review against another edition
medium-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
1.5
What an exasperating novel! Literally half of it is made up of the most inane, indulgent emails where characters ponder about consumerism and cosmetics and the philosophy of relationships, with zero theoretical background. Literally hundreds of pages of people just saying shower thought nonsense about labor and the exploitation of the global south and being like "idk if that makes sense, I've just been thinking about it." These are the sorts of conversations I have with friends over coffee and they tell me to read a fucking book.
The parts that aren't Wikipedia rehashes are also bizarrely inert. Huge chunks of the book read like alt text (constant plain descriptions of characters opening messaging apps), with almost no character voice because it's written in this detached third person style where everyone is a soup of the author just trying to have a single coherent idea. The back third of the book is the best by a wide margin because the emails go away and characters actually interact, but even that is too little too late because it's coming in with dynamics that are explicitly pulling from decades of friendship we barely see. We're meant to assume these characters are best friends despite only having uncomfortable interactions and bizarre emails. Then - psych - it's COVID time and we're talking about how actually nothing changed and isn't it sad we can't go to the cinema. Just exhausting stuff.
Finally, there are ongoing gestures at queerness which are so fucking obnoxious. Two of the characters are supposedly bisexual but everyone craves the traditional stability of heteronormativity. The book literally ends with a character getting pregnant and talking about marrying her childhood best friend and moving to the country.
This will certainly appeal to a certain type of middle class liberal that fancies themselves progressive but refuses to engage with actual materialist reality. Why consider decades of theory when you can act like you're the first person who has ever thought maybe it's wrong to subjugate much of the world to preserve an expendable lifestyle. Rooney is so transparently trying to come to terms with her own wealth and celebrity and it's just embarrassing.
What a fucking let down after Normal People.
The parts that aren't Wikipedia rehashes are also bizarrely inert. Huge chunks of the book read like alt text (constant plain descriptions of characters opening messaging apps), with almost no character voice because it's written in this detached third person style where everyone is a soup of the author just trying to have a single coherent idea. The back third of the book is the best by a wide margin because the emails go away and characters actually interact, but even that is too little too late because it's coming in with dynamics that are explicitly pulling from decades of friendship we barely see. We're meant to assume these characters are best friends despite only having uncomfortable interactions and bizarre emails. Then - psych - it's COVID time and we're talking about how actually nothing changed and isn't it sad we can't go to the cinema. Just exhausting stuff.
Finally, there are ongoing gestures at queerness which are so fucking obnoxious. Two of the characters are supposedly bisexual but everyone craves the traditional stability of heteronormativity. The book literally ends with a character getting pregnant and talking about marrying her childhood best friend and moving to the country.
This will certainly appeal to a certain type of middle class liberal that fancies themselves progressive but refuses to engage with actual materialist reality. Why consider decades of theory when you can act like you're the first person who has ever thought maybe it's wrong to subjugate much of the world to preserve an expendable lifestyle. Rooney is so transparently trying to come to terms with her own wealth and celebrity and it's just embarrassing.
What a fucking let down after Normal People.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol and Toxic relationship
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Death of parent