“Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney

This book wrecked me. And not in the cathartic way that Where the Red Fern Grows or Year of Wonders could move me to vicarious tears of grief. No, Sally Rooney put me in a place where I had to stop and think and focus in order to remember the love and happiness and joy in my life. 

Not that I didn't enjoy the reading experience as I was being destroyed. Rooney is three for three in Books I Could Not Put Down, and FSG should be happy to hear that I will probably buy anything she writes from here on out (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). 

This is, unsurprisingly, another relationship story--not just a love story, because it encompasses friendship and, tangentially, family. Alice (a famous but somewhat reclusive writer) and Eileen have been best friends for years; the bulk of the book consists of their email correspondence, but their connections to Felix and Simon are often in the forefront. I feel like a main theme of the story is tension--the type that exists when you try to pull someone closer (especially when they resist) or push someone away (especially when you don't intend to). 

Once again (just like Rachel Cusk does), Rooney has created characters who have these deeply intelligent conversations (though in Beautiful World, most of them are actually conducted by email rather than face to face) and I’m stuck telling people that after I got home from work this weekend I realized that the butt seam of my scrubs was ripped wide open so no wonder I'd been freezing all day. And I just have to make myself feel better by telling myself that sometimes I have deeply intelligent conversations, though definitely not constantly; and surely no one at work actually saw my butt.