Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Beautiful World, Where Are You

Ratings are so subjective to that specific person and time that this book can only be a 5 stars to me on January 2nd 2025 because all I did on new years was read this book and cry and love with it, it felt like someone wrote a letter to me and my mental health at that time

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cayliehausman's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

An intensely honest exploration of what it means to have long-term, intimate relationships (of any kind–friendship, situationship, with yourself) as an adult, and how time, our own anxieties and distance can affect our views of them.

*I want to go back and reread this, as I think I would’ve liked it more than listening*

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whoisrois's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Felix is honestly the first Rooneyverse character to feel like a real person to me

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cmcrockford's review against another edition

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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.

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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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.

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shibbie's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

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