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Beautiful World, Where Are You

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About this listen

' Beautiful World, Where Are You is Rooney's best novel.' THE TIMES

The *new* novel from the internationally bestselling author of Normal People.

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.

Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young - but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They worry about sex and friendship and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?

'A tour de force. The dialogue never falters, and the prose burns up the page.'
GUARDIAN

'Rooney's strongest writing thus far . . . There is a touching honesty and truthfulness in these pages, along with a quiet brilliance.'
FINANCIAL TIMES

'The book moved me to tears more than once . . . Rooney's best novel.'
THE TIMES

'Written with immense skill and illuminated by an endlessly incisive intelligence.'
IRISH TIMES

' Beautiful World, Where Are You is not just worth reading. It's worth thinking about.'
IRISH INDEPEDENT

'Brilliantly done: gripping, steamy, unbearably sad.'
TELEGRAPH

©2022 Sally Rooney (P)2022 Faber & Faber
Coming of Age Contemporary Contemporary Romance Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance

Critic reviews

'Beautiful World, Where Are You is Rooney's best novel.' The Times

'A tour de force.' Anne Enright, Guardian

'Rooney's best novel yet.' Brandon Taylor, New York Times

All stars
Most relevant
I loved the reading of Aoife McMahon in Normal People, so I was a little peturbed to hear Connell's and Marianne's voices in this context. However, I soon accepted them as belonging to the new characters.

If you enjoyed the relationships in Normal People, this is more of the same but in a more grown-up setting. It seems twentysomething angst is much the same as teenage angst, and not all that different to the angst of women in Jane Austen's time.

I was pleased to hear a happier ending than Normal People where the end was a little ambiguous (it could have worked out or it could have gone bad). Overall, I really enjoyed the story and the telling.

More intriguing relationship commentary

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Thought it took awhile to get into but really enjoyed the whole story. Aoife the narrator was amazing as always!! Another great from Sally Rooney!

Lovely listen

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Fantastic narratation. I enjoyed the author's detail around every day activities and emotion but I felt tense listening to the story. It had an eery vibe which made me think something awful was about to happen so quite unsettling. Worth a listen but I probably wouldn't recommend to a friend.

An OK listen

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What stood out to me in the content of this book was the material discussed and observed in the letters between the two friends on their reflections about their experiential opinions about art, religion, relationships, mental health, upbringing, lifestyles and careers. The writing of these letters felt compelling, like monologues of discourse trying to make sense of their internal + external worlds. However, the character dialogue outside of these emails felt a bit drab, I sensed a hollowness in their authenticity, and their parts felt performative when it came to sex, work and connection. The writing of the letters felt like a different author to the writing of the relationship dialogue. Would really have like the strength of intimacy to land throughout the book.

Lacked in dialogue, strength in letters

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While I enjoyed listening to this book, it’s story wasn’t extraordinary or a masterpiece - i’d even call it a bit shallow.

Enjoyable but shallow

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