Beautiful World, Where Are You

So, toward the end, with less than 40 pages to go, I got stuck in one chapter for about a week and a half. Because every time I tried to read this chapter, I would fall asleep. Part of it was being tired. But part of it was sheer boredom.

This was my least favorite. I didn't buy any of the relationships. Simon is blandly nice and good. Supposedly. I thought he was milquetoast and stupid.

Sadly, the author is definitely a one-trick pony. She is obviously intelligent. But I don't understand the ruminations on religion. Maybe that's because I come from a religious background (though Protestant), and I find the things Alice and Eileen think about religion to be naive, if not completely incorrect. And I don't understand why Alice and Felix are together, because they have zero chemistry; he's also a butthead. That being said, he's also the first character whom I feel like isn't merely performing his bisexuality. I believe, a little, that he is bi; I've never believed it of the other characters in her novels. I still don't believe any of them are Marxist; they all just say they are.

The quarter-life crises of the characters doesn't feel quite fleshed-out enough. I remember my friends all having quarter-life crises. There were similar worries, but less pretention.

I'm also very over heteronormativity of the characters, even the ones who aren't heteronormative. I don't know anyone personally at this point who performs gender so normatively as Eileen, Marianne, or Frances. Once again, a female character wants to be abused by a man. And once again, the characters can't communicate. Like, at all. Ever. Simon can't just come out and tell Eileen how he feels? But he can have sex with her over and over again? He's an idiot.

It's the same story, just with different details. And the style was killing me. I...I just can't. And this is purely subjective. But the lack of quotation marks. The need for more paragraphs. The run-ons. It doesn't feel experimental; it feels lazy.

That being said, I feel like this is maybe the most honest of the three books. Mostly because of the emails between the supposed besties. Who also can't communicate very well in person. I get that; that part makes sense. But the lack of chemistry when they finally meet does not.

Reading this, I know everyone thinks Alice is Rooney's avatar. But so is Eileen.

I'm sorry for the negative reviews, but her novels elude me. I don't relate. I don't see myself or my friends, most of whom are actually smack-dab in the midst of the Millennial generation. Rooney is obviously intelligent, but I'm confused by the naivete of her supposedly worldly characters, the stupidity of her male characters, and how no one can communicate properly. Maybe it's all just too cis/white/thin/privileged/heteronormative for me–because the characters are, despite their proclamations otherwise.