After I finished reading Beautiful World, Where Are You by The Great Millennial, Sally Rooney, I was lying on my side in bed with my phone on and the lights off. My thumb was hovering between four and five stars on my Goodreads account. In a few words, the book is an examination of the meaning of love and sex in the age of late-stage capitalism or, as one of the protagonists Eileen puts it, General Systems Collapse.
Published in early September, BWWAY has, to put it lightly, experienced a lot of hype. I’m a fan of Rooney — a big fan, really. Her writing lands for me. I know it doesn’t land for everyone and some people find the lack of quotation marks distracting. I find, however, that I can easily follow when and who is talking without them, which is especially notable because her books are so dialogue-heavy. Beautiful World, Where Are You feels prescient, real, honest, and weirdly sexy. But, of course, it was damningly pretentious and highly detailed in that way Rooney pulls off with such grace.
Anyway, back to my bed and my rating conundrum. I realized at some point that giving stars to books is ridiculous. It really doesn’t matter, and that is essentially what this book is about: In the end, all that matters is the people you love, no matter how trivial or trite that may sound. And, seriously, who cares what I thought about an outrageously popular book when it just rained at the summit of Greenland for the first time ever?!
