Faber & Faber Beautiful World, Where Are You: from the internationally bestselling author of Normal People

This was my third Sally Rooney book and she never disappoints. I love the way her characters are written, the plot is basic but represents so many problems and issues we go through on a day to day and it was lovely seeing the characters evolve so much from beginning to end

Sally Rooney never disappoints. Highly recommended book.

I was intensely disappointed by this one. At around the halfway mark I considered DNF'ing but decided to push on, and let me tell you - it was a tough slog to finish. This book is lacklustre in every sense of the word, something is missing. It doesn't have the same magic that Normal People has. After seeing droves of 5-star reviews, I figured this was probably a 'me' problem and not a problem with the book, but then I also feel like there are so many Sally Rooney apologists who will defend her work to the heavens and believe she is immune to any kind of critique (and I don't just mean the usual complaints about the blatant non-use of speech marks). Despite being very character driven, the characters are highly unlikable (this isn't quirky anymore, it's just kind of annoying) and they lack any emotional depth or emotional intelligence. It's like reading about 4 moody Tumblr teenagers with no self-awareness. A stronger sense of place would have really elevated this book but it was largely half-baked. The letters between narrators felt like space filler, veering off into topics that aren't pertinent to anything in the book (politics, the Bronze Age????). I'd struggle to recommend this to anyone.

I’m not sure where to even begin to be honest. I try not to buy into hype with things, but this truly is a case of the emperor’s new clothes. The writing is nothing special, I’ve read so many excellent books this year, detransition, baby, Paul takes the form of a mortal girl, her body and other parties and all men want to know to name a few and the writing in this book pales horribly in comparison; it is nothing more than perfunctory. The pacing is awful, the boring emails are filler and more filler and the characters seem to have been rehashed from her previous two books.Rooney has a penchant for writing pretentious and self-obsessed, but this book takes that to another (painful) level. I will admit it was a real grind for me to finish, but I just about managed it. I just assume it is trendy to say she’s brilliant, to take pictures of the book for the gram and to show you’re current and on the pulse- but it’s a tedious, meandering novel with not even a sliver of a saving grace.

After reading normal people, and conversations with friends I was really looking forward to this. I’m currently reading a super heavy book and wanted to use this as a light read before bed. Unfortunately I ended up completely disappointed, as for some reason they’ve decided to remove speech marks (basic punctuation), which completely ruins the flow of the book. Very disappointed.

Not quite sure where to begin, only that I very nearly didn't bother to read this novel because of the relentless hype around it. I find it all so toxic. To books, to writers, readers too. I was not a great fan of Normal People, thought it okay, but hyped. BWWAY is altogether different -- delicious, clever, wry, witty -- and left me with that rare tipsy feeling I sometimes get on finishing the book. I enjoyed it *enormously*.

Sadly I agree with all of the bad reviews about this book. I loved this author’s previous books so much that I had this on pre order and couldn’t wait to read it but found that I couldn’t wait for it to end. I didn’t like any of the characters and found them all rather annoying. Can’t add anything more than has already been said by previous reviewers but this was a great disappointment for me and wouldn’t recommend it. I have recommended her other books to practically everyone.