A review by bibliorey
Even If You Beat Me by Sally Rooney, Sally Rooney

4.0

“Popularity was not a mysterious arrangement of personal loyalties within a social code I didn’t understand: it was essentially just the same thing as success. Successful people were popular. You knew whose jokes to laugh at, because they were the people who gave the best speeches and said the cleverest things.”

I love Sally Rooney’s take on success, worth and popularity, how it goes hand in hand, especially in academia. In this masterpiece of an essay, we focus on the success and popularity standards in debate competitions. This is off Rooney’s own personal experience as a debater I believe and this was also–if I’m not mistaken–her first of later many writing masterpieces that launches her now blossoming career.

Rooney truly has a gift of writing since day one. This is a non-fiction which is different than any of her other writings and yet it was still captivating and full of meaning. I wished I had debated when I was in high school however we sadly didn’t have a club nor a team back then so reading Rooney’s experience truly is an insightful one for me.

This is simply a stunning piece for any readers or non-readers alike. If you’re interested in debate and its process and experience, Rooney’s recollection of her time as a debater is truly a fun one to read. It also includes some self-reflect and self-motivation that will simultaneously remind us of our own worth and efforts in our journey to success in life. Stunning. Excellent. Love love love it. You can read the essay on The Dublin Review, link attached below.

“Success doesn’t come from within; it’s given to you by other people, and other people can take it away. In part, this is why I stopped competing. I didn’t want to give up the feeling of flow, that perfect, self-eliminating focus, but I didn’t want to perform it for points any more. Academic life had presented me with much the same problem: I thought about things only as hard and as thoroughly as my grades required. Maybe I stopped debating to see if I could still think of things to say when there weren’t any prizes. To a greater or lesser extent, I am still working on that.”

–

“But I did it. I got everything I set out to get. I was the one delivering the offhanded refutation. It was me sipping water while I waited for the end of the applause. I still occasionally feel an impulse to attribute all my achievements that year to my perfect teammate, or worse, to good luck. But I’m not nineteen anymore; I don’t need to make people feel comfortable. In the end, it was me. It may not mean anything to anyone else, but it doesn’t have to – that’s the point. I was number one. Like Fast Eddie, I’m the best there is. And even if you beat me, I’m still the best.”

Read it on The Dublin Review: https://thedublinreview.com/article/even-if-you-beat-me/

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