The third novel from Sally Rooney — the voice of a generation — and her most expansive yet. Beautiful World, Where Are You is a quietly devastating story about friendship, love, and the search for meaning when the world feels like it’s coming apart at the seams.
Alice, a novelist freshly out of a breakdown, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and impulsively asks him to travel to Rome with her. Back in Dublin, her best friend Eileen is nursing a breakup and slipping back into something complicated with Simon, a man she’s known since childhood. Across emails and encounters, the four of them circle questions of beauty, purpose, and whether it’s still possible to live well in an uncertain world.
Rooney’s signature quiet intimacy is here in full force — the sharp dialogue, the charged silences, the way her characters think too much and feel everything. Trending for its millennial ennui, friends-to-lovers tension, and the philosophical emails that divide readers but linger long after the last page. The line that captures it all: "We’re all just passing through the world, trying to love it."
Perfect for fans of Normal People and Conversations with Friends by Rooney, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. A natural bundle with other Rooney titles for collectors.
A paperback (2021, Faber & Faber) in Very Good condition.
