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

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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