Beautiful World, Where Are You: A Novel

Written by Sally Rooney

Narrated by Aoife McMahon

"Aoife McMahon is a gem of a narrator, helping create the perfect atmosphere for Rooney’s story." -Book Riot

"McMahon's acting dexterity shows in seamless shifts between points of view, characters, and emotions. Male to female, white-collar to blue-collar, anger to passion - her crisp Irish accent makes these transitions with the lightness of a lark. Likewise, via McMahon, Rooney's peerless descriptions imprint upon the mind's eye. The listener won't soon forget a silk blouse caressed like a pet, freckled arms made pink by the sun, the coast of Ireland at nightfall, or the forgiveness of a best friend." -AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winning review

Beautiful World, Where Are You is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends.

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 have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships 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 Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Sep 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781250818041

Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney is an Irish novelist. She is the author of Beautiful World, Where Are You, Conversations with Friends, and Normal People. She also contributed to the writing and production of the Hulu/BBC television adaptation of Normal People

Reviews for Beautiful World, Where Are You

[Agnese Sturme · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was fantastic! Well written, thought provoking and really beautiful.

[joan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Easy listen about friends going through life and their ups and downs

[ישי גולן · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Painfully beautiful.
Contemporary, deep, simple, witty, brilliant and inspiring. Thank you.

[Laryssa Green · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn’t love this book, kind of just a hard one to get into. As much as I absolutely wanted to love. I think it had some wonderful underlying meaning, but just not my favorite story line.

[B L U E · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The audiobook is 5/5. Though the book itself emm.. not that much I don’t know whether it’s due to my high expectations or that the plot itself didn’t do it for me. I love Sally Rooney's writing language and the controversial topics she addresses, I just wasn’t invested that much in the story of these four friends and their relationships with one another. Yes, there’s a really interesting relationship dynamics but that’s about it I guess.

[Diana Reese Puckett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The narrator is great! This book was fantastic. Brilliantly written, philosophical and thought provoking. An engaging story of 4 people at a crossroads in life. Coming together, breaking apart, and creating lives and loves for themselves. The novel is evenly paced and atmospheric, the characters are well developed and multidimensional. Character driven, contemporary fiction that I enjoyed from start to finish. Sally Rooney's best work in my opinion

[耿建康 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

such a stunning piece of work, beautiful book.the audiobook is absolutely wonderful.

[Jeanne Kurtti · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Like “Normal People” by the same author, this book seemed to have very little point. The only thing I can say is that it was well written. I don’t know that I will read any more Sally Rooney books in the future.

[Mary · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed it. The characters are flawed and realistic. Thank you.

[Thomas delfosse · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Don't think I'm the target market for this one. Just a lot of inner dialogue and correspondence of a young woman and her friends

[Vanessa Campbell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I saw all the hype about this book online and not having read anything by this author I figured I'd give it a shot. I thought it ok, but the story goes nowhere and just rambles about over dumb things. I can't find any meaning to it. I'm kind of disappointed.

[suzywells · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My favorite part of the book was the last ten pages!!

[sashastorylover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It’s my first Sally Rooney book and I enjoyed it a lot!

[Alberto Kathleen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Touching
True to form
Sometimes irritating
But a good read

[Yousra Books · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I will read anything and everything Sally writes. I love her! And this book is just as amazing and great as the first two !

[Ebony Thompson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not my favorite. Emails between the friends were wordy and hard to understand. Hard, for me, to love the characters.

[Gabrielle Henery · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was far from impressed with this book. It felt like an excuse to have uncomfortable sex scenes every chapter. Awkward and uncomfortable and I had to explain to my grandfather how lesbians have sex so I know awkward.

[Karen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I painfully admit I liked this book. I’m just incredibly saddened that the author has decided to not translate this book to the Hebrew language in a form of boycott. I don’t think the Israeli citizens that enjoy reading should be punished and I think she would do best by keeping personal opinions on such matters separate. Nonetheless, as a reader I have to say this was a great read with well crafted characters. I loved the exploration of friendship and mental health. I hope I can put aside my disappointment and read more from this author.

[Barbara Hoffer · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Though I appreciated the life questions posed between the characters, however I felt totally Exhausted throughout.

[Andrea · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Boring and pretentious. The thinnest of plots with characters that are not well developed. The men speak in 2 word sentences while the women write each other loooong emails about the meaning of life.

The relationships between the characters were cringe-worthy. They sounded like high school or early college students, rather than adults trying to make their way through life.

The author would have been better off developing the email exchanges into a series of essays.

I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't finish. Gave up about 2/3 of the way through.