I loved this book. Rooney has a perfect talent bringing a realism to the page, in terms of her characters and also their surroundings. I rarely have felt so connected to a novel as I have with this one. In fact the last time I connected so strongly with a novel was her previous work, Normal People, which is one of my favourite novels. Rooney manages to convey the emotions and strifes of the characters so powerfully that I am brought to the brink of sadness and joy myself, as I read along.
Beautiful World is about two friends, Alice and Eileen, and each of their close acquaintances, Simon and Felix, and how the dynamic between the two girls in particular develops over the course of a year or so. As issues between come and go, life goes on, relationships build and fall apart and in the letters they exchange between each other, they question the state of the world, their part in and their responsibilities for it.
While this book doesn’t carry quite the same emotional heft as Normal People, I actually felt more in tune with it, particularly in the letter correspondence chapters. Rooney brings forth political, ethical, religious and environmental dilemmas for the characters, and the reader, to ponder and explore. I found the letters to be a refreshing break away from the rest of the plot and oddly comforting, even though I sometimes would not agree with the characters statements, it was still nice to see that these things that I have often thought about are considered by others too, _or_ as the case may be, maybe I should be contemplating some of the points they discuss.
It is very hard to read this book and not look at it like a fictional autobiography of Rooney herself. Alice is a world famous, Irish writer who catapulted to fame after publishing two highly successful novels, and struggling to get out a third. She went to college in Dublin but now lives in the West of the Ireland. There are probably more similarities in there that I cannot think of right now.
I don’t think this is a flaw with the novel. In fact I loved it. I felt it gave us an insight into her mind. It can easy to get caught up so much in a novel that you assume the writer themselves must believe the same things as their characters, but surely in this instance, when the reflection is so similar, this assumption is warranted… to an extent at least. I must concede, Rooney actually warns us about assuming such familiarity with the author, again, through Alice, and suggests that just because we _feel_ like we know them, does not mean that we do and that all we truly see of them in a book is a moment in time.
This book brought up so many thoughts and emotions that it has really struck a chord with me, and though the painful joy and heartache that came with Normal People is slightly diminished here, the emotions stirred by Beautiful World were no less enduring.
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Popular highlights in this book
And we hate people for making mistakes so much more than we love them for doing good that the easiest way to live is to do nothing, say nothing, and love no one.Highlighted by 2,548 Kindle readers- Maybe we’re just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing.Highlighted by 2,099 Kindle readers
- We can’t conserve anything, and especially not social relations, without altering their nature, arresting some part of their interaction with time in an unnatural way.Highlighted by 1,393 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
Conversations with Friends
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Normal People
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Beautiful World, Where Are You
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Intermezzo
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| Price | £7.49 | £7.55 | £6.67 | £10.00 |
About the author
Not what I expected but better!
I was expecting the normal cover for this book however I got one of the special coloured ones!! Over the moon about it, it’s absolutely beautiful and can’t wait to read 💜
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 May 2025
Top reviews from other countries
- switterbug/Betsey Van HornReviewed in the United States on 5 October 2021
Frank Schiller, "Schöne Welt, wo bist du?"
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Good Quality
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