mkschommer 's review for:

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

5.0

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This novel is an incredibly nuanced story about the importance of communication and love through life's mundanity – work, travel, college, etc. BWWAY calls the more grandiose aspects of love into question, such as fame (with a little meta writing about the publishing industry from Rooney through Alice's character), and makes us wonder who exactly deserves love and why, and how it's achieved (or lost). Though this book is not dependent on the plot at all, Rooney calls us to question what our reasons for existence are, which was mainly caused by and solved through Alice and Eileen's back-and-forth emails that touched on strong topics of sex, love, politics, climate change, power dynamics – everything (even God, despite both characters being agnostic/atheist). 

The characters are very mature – older than I am by about a decade, and though there were some things I couldn't relate to, I found the character's relationships (or lack thereof) to be emotionally enthralling and offer company to questions I couldn't articulate myself.