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

Sally Rooney

Sep 2021 · Faber & Faber

About this ebook

*The Sunday Times and global number one bestseller*
*Winner of Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards*
*Over one million copies sold across all Faber editions *
'A tour de force.' Anne Enright, Guardian
'Rooney's best novel yet.' Brandon Taylor, New York Times
'Get ready to have your heart broken all over again.' Red
'The book moved me to tears more than once.' The Times
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 worry about sex and friendship and the times they live in. Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?

Ratings and reviews

I read this with my book club, we all agreed Rooney had lost her touch with this one. Maybe it's just me/us, by all means make up your own mind...but I would honestly recommend against wasting your time.

There's pages upon pages of email exchanges that went on and on with zero payoff. I'd be pissed off if someone wrote me an email that long and now imagine the email isn't even directed at you? Didn't hate it overall, but next time, keep it sweet and sweet again Sally.

Not many people can write about mundane, everyday living with such beauty. Not a lot happens (it's a Sally Rooney novel after all) but I adored every bit of it, including the chaotic relationships, pretentious emails, and the rollercoaster of emotions.

About the author

Sally Rooney is the author of the novels Conversations with Friends and Normal People. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the London Review of Books and elsewhere . Conversations with Friends was shortlisted for both the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. Rooney was also shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for 'Mr Salary' and was the winner of the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. Normal People was the Waterstones Book of the Year 2019 and won the Costa Novel of the Year in 2018. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2018, as well as the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Rathbones Folio Prize in 2019. Sally Rooney co-wrote the television adaptation of Normal People which was broadcast on the BBC in 2020. Beautiful World, Where Are You is Rooney's third novel.