BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU BY SALLY ROONEY BOOK REVIEW

Sally Rooney? Have you heard of this author? Conversations with friends? Normal People? Ringing a bell? No? No worries, she brought out a new book called Beautiful World, Where are you? and I'm reviewing it.

[shrklotte]

connell's necklace is the best rooney character

im actually quite looking forward to reading it now

[GuiltyFeat]

Nothing wrong with being aggressively average. Some of us have built whole careers and even marriages aspiring to that very peak.

[fena_reti]

I feel like the plot of the books that she writes is just the backdrop and what really matters is the feelings she explores with her characters. The plot only exists for her characters to experience the emotions she wants to write about.

Her writing really moves me, it’s like it’s written for me. And that is such a rare thing to come across.

I cannot wait to read this book, I’m happy you didn’t hate it 😅

[NerdyNurseReads]

9:10 phew 😮‍💨 this didn’t destroy me…i loved this book but I’m a basic sad lit chick

[OverlyAverageBen]

Ben types out a comment before realising that it isn't funny. *tap, tap, tap.* With each hit of the backspace he feels his confidence dwindle. Has he ever been funny? Does the opinion of strangers really define who he is? With a deep sigh, Ben leans forward and begins typing again... Yes, yes it does.

[Libra_Libris]

We need a Rooney essay collection. That should be her next move...

I also think she's an author who takes note of constructive criticism and puts it into practice. CWF and NP are thematically and structurally similar but NP was a stronger novel because she worked on the weak areas in her debut. I think she's a novelist in development, so I'm not surprised that you found this one her best to date.
Hope to get a copy soon and see for myself.

[yeshprab]

Sunjeev Sahota's China Room did not make it to the short list, but it deserved to be in it. Considering that there were thirteen books in the long list, if the judges wished to read all of them before passing judgements on them, it would have taken considerable time to read them carefully and pay attention to what they were reading. It is possible that they just skimmed through the novels. China Room is the kind of novel that demands attention from the reader to appreciate it. Written in elegant prose, the story is bewitching. The two strands of the novel aren't equally powerful; one strand or story dominates. But both engage a reader's mind. I think this novel should be placed right next to Anuk Arudpragasam's A Passage North. This novel must be read slowly because its prose is gorgeous. Why rush through a novel written so beautifully? A Passage North novel deserves to win.
Yesh Prabhu, Bushkill, Pennsylvania

[clairecatharine]

My friend has been nagging at me to read Rooney and now I know which one to pick up 📚 thanking you!

[PagesAndStages]

Bring on the pottery chat Sal, I’m sold

[sarahk]

💥💥 Enjoyed this! Makes me very curious to hear about her next book. Very impressive speed on this review as well.

[iuwsvhs]

“Patent-pending Sally Rooney toolkit!”
Get this man a bucket hat 👏🏽👏🏽
I fear being“aggressively average” 😂

[pagesofcarolyn]

you are quite deserving of the bucket hat

[סנדרהשלום]

Sally Rooney’s Hate Is the New Normal
It is not easy to convince the Snapchat generation to read books. To do so, you must be a gifted writer and know which buttons to press in young people’s hearts. Sally Rooney, a young Irish author, is that kind of writer. Her first two books have won multiple awards and she is widely regarded as one of the most prominent voices of millennials.
Rooney is also very opinionated. She is a self-proclaimed Marxist and an avid supporter of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS). In line with her views, she has refused to sell translation rights to Israeli publishers. Because of her notoriety, her decision caused quite a stir. The New York Times stated, “Sally Rooney Declines to Sell Translation Rights to Israeli Publisher.” CNN echoed, “Sally Rooney refuses to sell Hebrew rights for latest book to Israeli publisher, citing political objections, ” and other prominent news outlets also reported her decision.
In response, Israel's two largest bookstore chains announced that they would pull all of Rooney's titles from their shelves. This also caused a stir, though not as much. The BBC reported it, as did The Guardian and other British news outlets. Naturally, the Jewish press was all over the case, as well.
I sympathize with the response of the bookstore chains, just as I was in favor of banning other individuals and brands that boycott Israel. At the same time, I understand why they are doing this, and I am glad that it is causing a stir in Israel.
We can look the other way for only so long. At some point, we will have to ask ourselves why the world hates us, and it is better if we do it now than later.
We need to use such incidents constructively. By "constructively, " I mean that we should use them as an impetus to return to the roots of our nation, to our fundamental principles of mutual responsibility and brotherly love. These are the building blocks of our nation, and these are the qualities that we lost long ago and for which we were exiled from Israel.
When we were cast as a nation that was to be “a light unto nations, ” we were made to reflect the splendor of love of others to the entire world. Long before we gave the world Albert Einstein and Arthur Rubenstein, we gave it “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Granted, we did not quite manage to make it a reality, but the idea itself was, and still is, so novel, so unlike human nature, that to this day it seems undoable.
Still, the world will not leave us in peace until we begin to implement this very legacy we had left to humanity. Indeed, it makes perfect sense to demand that the progenitors of this sublime idea be the first to implement it.
The more the world becomes divided and hostile, the more it needs its opposite - love of others. The more people hate each other, the more they will demand that we love each other, and they will hate us for not doing so and setting an example for the world to follow.
In the near future, numerous celebrities, pundits, and politicians will declare their disapproval of Israel. They will not justify our existence as a sovereign state unless we justify it by setting an example of unity. Nothing else will satisfy them; nothing else will appease their hatred.

For more on this, see my publication The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism..

[redpandareads]

The Rooney review I've been waiting for!

[SM-vrdz]

I’ve never read Rooney. I have Normal People, so I suppose I should read it.

[GaggingLit]

Her best work?? Ooh i am going in wide-eyed now.

[FrankOdonnell-ejhd]

The more I hear about her the less I'm interested in reading her. But she does sound a little like my beloved Iris Murdoch without Murdoch's flair for the dramatic and her exploration of tough existential issues like the nature of human freedom and responsibility for one's actions. Also as a sixties-something not much interested in twenties and thirties-something bed-hopping and such. But would really like to know what she means when she says she's a Marxist and how she arrived at that.

[ernyes_]

Given that I haven't read the novel and don't have much of an interest in reading Sally Rooney anyway, I have an important thing to ask though:

Is that a Sunn O))) T-shirt???
Gee, not only you have great taste in books, it seems that your taste in music is also chef's kiss! 😁
What a great band! 🔥💙

[readbykate]

you know.. at the beginning you made me v v v v sad, but at the end you at least sort of kind of recommended it?? ahahah this was a good review though I like that you're not up her butt like the rest of us :--)

[Iza]

Yeah hype is huuge, that's why I'm not reading her books. Hype is always wrong