A review by ms_jo
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

2.0

I’m sorry, but I found that this just dragged. It has taken me weeks to get through, even when I was so excited to start. The care team characters are actually pretty engaging and there are some beautifully intimate scenes and poignant lines, but all interspersed with just… kind of… waffle.

There’s lots of long paragraphs of internal character monologue, all of which actually seem to be slightly self-indulgent and not too subtle musings from Rooney herself. You may have seen reviews about ‘left wing political messaging’ etc but there is also a lot said about the role of the author and ideas of privacy and scrutiny of the individual which feel like Rooney trying to make a pointed comment. This isn’t, in and of itself, a problem. But it wasn’t interesting to read…


The last 10 pages have been talked about a lot and frankly I liked the ending the gave in that it was all pretty nice and neat, but it didn’t at all feel like the ending the book was building towards. More like an extra addition or afterthought because otherwise literally nothing happened.