Beautiful World Where Are You- Sally Rooney

-


Beautiful World Where are You is Sally Rooney's latest brainchild. The contemporary novel revolves around the complexity of relationships just like her previous works, Normal People and Conversations with Friends. You essentially know the sight of a good book when it's aggressively tagged and highlighted, and with this one, I went as far as making notes because Rooney really hits you in the gut with her observations in this book. 
The book revolves around the lives of four people, Alice, Eileen, Felix, and Simon who want to experience life to the fullest yet, like most people it soon turns into a hazy bundle of the mess that you endlessly start despising. Alice a novelist, is an eccentric woman who suffered a mental breakdown due to the newfound fame of a celebrity novelist and now lives alone in a huge rectory in Dublin. Her best friend, Eileen, often lonesome, is an excellently witty and intelligent female who works at an extremely low-paying literary agency. Unlike the usual best friend relationships, these soon-to-be 30 females talk only via emails that range drastically from topics like worrying about childbirth to the destruction of the world. 
Rooney through this book, has in my view, completely outdone herself. My personal favorite, Alice, is probably a source for Rooney to let out her thoughts and ranting obsessions that she might have as a writer about the literary world and her own newfound fame as a writer. The best part about the book is the alternative chapters that consist of intellectually stimulating conversations (and sometimes even the most ridiculous things I've read in a book) that consist of extremely relatable yet random, and intensely moving opinions one usually only thinks about at night. The daily tribulations of life and the overtly emotional rants of the characters add to the complexity of the relationships, old or new. 
Rooney describes love- as unfiltered, raw, and scary. She enthralls the reader through her remarkable ability to precisely capture and portray the lives of normal people who like everybody else are stuck in the circle of life that consists of emotional rollercoasters, professional power plays, and miscommunications. 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Secret History- Donna Tartt

-
Image
  In the age of the internet and the ever-increasing influence of social media in our lives, every once in a while the reader in me finds herself picking up a book that was unsurprisingly recommended to me through "Tik-Tok" exported reels. She goes to a bookstore with utter and all-embracing faith in the opinion of an individual living hundreds of miles away and usually, it ends badly for her.  The Secret History is a well-known celebrity on the internet which, unfortunately, did end badly for me. It starts off with the narrator Richard Pappin describing the one and the only story he can ever tell- the story of how Bunny got murdered. When Richard lands in Vermont, a thickly forested State in the northeastern United States, his attention is caught by a group of eccentric individuals obsessed with Greek and the riches of their respective families. Soon our narrator finds himself lying his way to become a part of something that ultimately leads him to be partly responsible for
Read more

Blue Sisters- Coco Mellors

-
Image
  Sisterhood in all its forms and glory has been my north star. Obviously, the universe decided not to give me a sister as a sibling yet sisterhood finds its roots in the most other-worldly relationships. But if I am actually being honest, sisterhood is also tiring. Being a "girls girl" requires empathy and sacrifice and a perpetual positive outlook on the circumstances life happens to throw at you which in my candid opinion, is not my cup of tea. Furthermore, if I am actually traversing the path of candidness and deadpan hilarity, the universe also decided not to humor me with the gift of an all-encompassing and enriching female friendship thereby leading to this defeatist attitude.  Emotional vomit aside, Blue Sisters was my attempt at sisterhood, one step towards my north star in order to simply understand and for once, enjoy the ever-giving love that popular culture said sisterhood brings with itself. And boy, was I let down again (haha, bi*ch).  I love Mellors for the wo
Read more

Cleopatra and Frankenstein- Coco Mellers

-
Image
  A reading slump often plagues one's life numerous times and a catchy title with a beautiful cover as this book is probably one that gets you out of it. A book reader unknowingly (knowingly for that matter) always has certain standards to judge a book and obviously, Sally Rooney set those for me. And to my sheer surprise (and extreme joy) Coco Mellors has done a brilliant job with her writing and characters. Cleo and Frank are funnily, two people who had similar experiences as children mostly characterized by absent parents and a traumatizing childhood but they are different in age and behavior. One would say age is just a number, but when Cleo, a British artist, marries Frank who is twenty years older than her and a man of success, things take a turn for the bad. I have to be honest, you really have to put some stereotypical notions on your side table as you turn the pages of the book. The story brings out the characters in Cleo and Frank's life and the tumultuous consequence
Read more