She has recently met a local boy, Felix, a packer in a warehouse, via a dating app. It focuses on two women in their late twenties who are best friends: Alice is a successful novelist Eileen is an editorial assistant on a literary magazine.Īlice is recovering from a nervous breakdown and has decamped to the countryside, living in a house she’s borrowed from friends. It focuses on their personal growth through the romantic relationships they develop and charts the ups and downs of those relationships. There’s not much of a plot other than an exploration of how life plays out for two young women, both of whom are unhappy with their situations, over a short period of time. And, unusually for a Rooney novel, it ends on a happy note. The story is clever and playful, but it’s also melancholy and bittersweet. It’s not perfect (what novel is?), but it’s entertaining and there’s a certain irony at play because one of the key characters is a famous author who is young and Irish and, well, it’s hard not to see Rooney having a pop at the ridiculousness of her own situation and the machinations of the publishing industry which has turned her into the literary star she is today. Builds on previous workīeautiful World, Where are You builds on the strengths of Rooney’s two earlier novels, but it’s not necessarily more of the same: the protagonists feel older and are grappling with issues more pertinent to women about to hit their thirties, but even the structure of the book, and the way it is plotted, is more mature. And within the space of a weekend, I had finished it - and decided it was excellent. But then I had a cold rush of blood to the head, made a spur-of-the-moment purchase and settled down to read.
Advance reader copies sold for huge amounts prior to publication.Īs much as I liked (not loved) her previous two novels, Conversations with Friends and Normal People, I was prepared to wait for the hype to die down before buying the new one. Her American publisher produced a bucket hat and a load of other merchandise, a clever marketing exercise that warranted the attention of an entire article in GQ magazine, and proof copies handed out in some jurisdictions came with strict embargos.
Sally Rooney’s new novel, Beautiful World, Where are You, arrived with a lot of fanfare. Fiction – paperback Faber & Faber 337 pages 2021.
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