As soon as Sally Rooney dropped her anticipated new novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You (or BWWAY for short), I had to get my hands on it!
What I Liked
I read the book as soon as I got a chance and it did not disappoint. Sally Rooney has created a brand around writing real characters with complex relationships. If you are looking for a classic romance where 2 people fall in love and just end up together, Sally Rooney’s books are not for you. She delves into what it means to have a relationship (romantic, platonic and everything in between) in today’s world.
BWWAY is about 4 characters and their relationships with each other. Alice is a famous novelist, Eileen is an editor in a literary magazine, Simon works in politics and Felix works in a warehouse. The novel explores the friendships and relationships between the 4 characters in so much depth. Sally Rooney also excels at dissecting complex emotions by creating very vivid scenes and descriptions.
If you’ve read Normal People by Sally Rooney then read BWWAY, you can definitely see that her writing has matured a lot. I am unsure, however, if that is due to her developing as a novelist or because the characters are older (late twenties and early thirties in BWWAY compared to teens and early twenties in Normal People).
What I Did Not Like
Sally Rooney, in my opinion, often creates really difficult and unlikeable main characters. I personally do not always enjoy reading about them because the interactions do not seem authentic.
It’s hard to explain the thought process that one goes through while reading Sally Rooney’s books. I am not necessarily liking the characters but I do often empathise with them and, weirdly enough, cannot put the book down.
In the book, nothing is really happening on the macro level. It feels like the novel isn’t really moving forward in terms of plot or events. However, on the micro-level, character interactions develop a lot.
Interesting Observations
I can definitely see that Sally Rooney took out her frustrations on many topics through this novel. Through Alice, one of the characters who’s a famous novelist, Rooney was able to voice her opinions about the publishing industry and famous authors.
It is not confirmed whether this is Rooney’s actual opinion on the matter, however, readers speculate that the character choice was intentional. I personally think that the topic was written and developed very well.
Around half of this book is emails between Alice and Eileen – this was my favourite part! The emails are beautifully written, exploring their thoughts and their views of themselves and the world. It inspired me to start writing emails to my best friend doing the same.
Overall
If you liked Normal People, I think you’ll enjoy this as a more mature version with a very similar style.