Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Beautiful World, Where Are You

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

22 reviews

cmcrockford's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Sally Rooney is a good writer badly in need of an editor and I say this as a person whose title includes Editor. The last third of the book is much better than the first two, in part because Manic Pixie Working Class Guy Felix provokes so much previously unspoken resentment out of these slightly miserable, PMC literary people.

Rooney's very good at dialogue and this makes me wonder if she should just write tv or theater. When she uses novelistic techniques, they either feel virtuoso (the wedding) or outright clumsy (the emails, the sentences with multiple ambiguous descriptors). Editors are your friends! We value the good stuff, cut the bullshit, and tell you when one phrase will do instead of three. Sally, call me.

Notes: It is ok to write essays and not put your own thoughts into novels. I don't talk like this in emails. No one does. Men have been rightly accused of writing Tits McChestawesome type female characters for years, but here Felix is a rescue dog owner, working class laborer, and handsome bisexual, also great in bed, where Simon is a tall idealist Catholic politician, evidently also great in bed. These men exist. Yes. I'm confident in that.

Content Warnings

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Midway through the book I realized why I wasn't having a good time. It's not as though I don't enjoy slice of life stories or the micro analysis of some basic everyday random people living their lives as best they can, but there was nothing that endeared me to the characters at all.

Content Warnings

annoyedhumanoid's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

a man with the name brady regaling you with your flaws.. too real for me

i appreciated the email chapters for the insight into Alice and Eileen's friendship, but not for the philosophical commentary—it came off as lazy writing to explicate the novel's themes. at least it was in conversation, allowing for input and disagreement from another character.

Content Warnings