Beautiful World Where Are You Summary, Quotes & Review

Beautiful World, Where Are You Summary

Brief Information

• The genre of the book is fiction and romance.
• The age Rating is 18+ due to explicit sexual content and mention of mental illness.
• There are 337 pages in the book.
• The book revolves around the themes of loneliness, adulthood, the meaning of life, mental health, love, friendship, and alienation.
• The main characters in the book are Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon.
• The story takes place in Ireland.
• The book has a happy ending.
• The readability of the book is easy. 

Characters

Eileen

Eileen Lydon; a twenty-nine years old woman living a mundane life. She is an editorial assistant in a literary magazine, which isn’t a particularly stimulating work. She is used to living like this, as a child she was sidetracked because of her sister, Lola who despised her. The only person to ever take her side was Simon Costigan, her neighbor who is five years older than her. She has always been in love with him and he too returned her affection but now she’s on the cusp of her thirties and they’re still not together. 

Simon

Simon Costigan has always been the polite kid full of manners. Now even in his thirties, he remains the same as always. He believes in God wholeheartedly and wants to change the world for good. For that reason, he went for a career in politics. He doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t admire Eileen. He moved to London for higher studies and dated many younger girls but never once forgot Eileen. They are still friends. He goes to Church, works, and dates but one thing is always missing; Eileen. 

Alice

Alice Kelleher met Eileen when they were eighteen. They studied in Dublin and were roommates. Alice was the oddball with a disrupted childhood and a foul attitude. She didn’t have many friends except Eileen. After graduating, she started a job in a coffee shop and started writing novels. When her books got published she became famous and rich, which she didn’t particularly like afterwards. Due to all the pressure, she suffered a lot and even had a psychiatric breakdown. She decided to disappear for a while and starts living on the outskirts of Dublin. That’s when she met Felix via Tinder. 

Felix

Felix is a warehouse worker, he doesn’t like his job but it pays the bills. He lives near the sea in Dublin, he has a few friends and a dog, and he is mostly content with his life. He loved his mom but she passed away. He and his brother don’t get along well, he surely needs someone special in his life. He meets Alice through Tinder. She’s a little mean-spirited but not bad. He wants her but things aren’t going to be that easy.  

To understand more about these peculiar characters let’s see Beautiful World Where Are You Summary

Beautiful World Where Are You Summary

Short Summary

(No Spoilers)

The book follows the story of four friends. Alice and Eileen are living in the same city but are in contact with each other via email. Alice is just frustrated with her seemingly-perfect life, she has lost all sense of joy in life. Eileen works as an editorial assistant and her life just seems too meaningless, her childhood crush and friend Simon is seeing other people, her job is boring, she is not able to see her one and only friend Alice, and is being pestered by her selfish sister Lola. Throughout the story, we see Alice and Eileen’s interesting emails and their tumultuous life. More than romance, it is a book about life.

Just normal life and normal people. We see Alice meeting Felix, Simon and Eileen uniting, Alice and Eileen resolving their issues, Eileen communicating, and so on. We see the characters grow and try hard to find happiness and meaning in life. A beautiful story about ordinary people and their ordinary struggles in an extraordinary way. 

Detailed Summary( With Spoilers!! )

Beautiful World Where Are You Summary (In Depth, Major Spoilers Ahead!!)

 Being best friends Alice and Eileen regularly send each other emails updating the other about their life. The chapters in the book alternate between the plot and emails. The story starts when Alice meets Felix via Tinder in a local bar. Their first date was a failure but they didn’t dislike each other so they meet again. As their conversation moves forward, Alice asks Felix to accompany her to Rome on a work trip.

At the moment Felix doesn’t have much to do so he agrees. Together they wander across the streets of Rome, attend book readings, go to restaurants, and share late-night talks. Gradually their relationship progresses. 

On the other side, Eileen is just living her boring life and sending Alice emails. She is upset about a lot of things, about her breakup with her long-term boyfriend Aidan, about seeing Simon with a younger girl, about her boring job, about Lola’s (Her sister) tantrums.

After a fight with Lola, she impulsively makes a decision and finds herself on Simon’s doorstep at midnight. Simon takes her in, consoles her, lie down with her, and they get intimate with each other that night. The next morning Eileen is ecstatic. She even joins Simon on his visit to the Church. Seeing Simon’s unwavering belief in God and Goodness, she is thunder-struck and fascinated. 

Meanwhile, Felix and Alice return from their trip to Rome, and Felix starts ignoring Alice out of nowhere. One day after work, he decides to pay her a visit, thankfully they solve their issues and get back to their old routine of talking and kissing. There’s trouble in paradise when Alice and a drunken Felix have a fight but it is soon resolved. 

Now Alice and Eileen both have romance in their lives. Eileen and Simon are yet not an official couple. Things go south when some of Simon’s friends tell Eileen about a girl Simon is seeing named Caroline. After the party, Simon & Eileen have an argument over this. Simon tells Eileen about his fears and confusion, he’s confused because Eileen won’t name their relationship. He agrees on breaking ties with Caroline at the moment. But Eileen refuses and friend-zones him. 

Eileen is scared of losing Simon as a friend in case they break up, so she decides it’s better to be friends. Simon is confused by her actions and doesn’t know what to do. Simon and Eileen attend Lola’s wedding together which was surreal and brought many memories back. 

Ending Explained

After a lot of to and fro, Alice and Eileen finally reunite, Felix and Simon with them. The four of them live in Alice’s house, they talk, eat, and have a lovely time. They go to the beach, have a heart-to-heart, and look at the life they’ve created. Simon and Eileen are still sour and gloomy. 

On Felix’s suggestion, they go to one of Felix’s friend’s birthday party too where Alice meets Felix’s brother.  When they return home after the party, Alice and Eileen have a big fight over their distance and selfishness over the years. Felix handles Alice when things go out of hand, and consoles her by telling her that even he had psychiatric issues and there is nothing wrong with her.

Simon goes to console a crying Eileen, they talk over everything, communicate and solve their issues too. They finally become a couple. Afterward, Alice and Eileen reconcile. Fast forward, Alice and Eileen are still sending emails to each other but now Alice has Felix beside her and Eileen is pregnant with Simon’s baby. A nice little family. 

The world doesn’t look too bad to them now, there’s beauty in love and care. No matter what you become, the greatest thing is love and care which fills the hole in your life. This was Beautiful World Where Are You Summary. 

Quotes

Rooney, Sally. Beautiful World, where are You. Faber, 2021.

Book Review

Just like any other Sally Rooney book, ‘Beautiful World Where Are You’ focuses on deeper topics, it’s more than a romance book. The characters in the book are extremely relatable and feel like home, they are flawed, humane, and commit mistakes. Sally Rooney has a talent for showing reality as it is in a very vivid way. We see how even after being famous and rich, Alice suffers. We see how difficult communicating one’s true feelings can be even to our closest friends. We see how meaningless life can appear without love and care.

Things I Liked

• The writing style of the book.
• Well-developed and real characters.
• Discussion about world affairs and important topics between Alice and Eileen. Both of them had a unique outlook on the world.
• The hidden moral values in the book.
• The deep, carefully-brewed, and slow romance in the book.

Things I didn’t like

• The pacing was a little slow.
• Irregular length of chapters. Either they are too short or too long.
• Miscommunication between the characters started to feel a bit dragged and unnecessary. 

Who shouldn’t read this book?

• Readers who prefer spicy and fast-paced love stories shouldn’t go for this. 
• Readers who prefer cliché and rom-com shouldn’t read this.
• Readers who prefer an easy-to-understand book with shallow aspects shouldn’t go for this book. 
• Readers who prefer a thriller story with plot twists and ups and downs shouldn’t go for it.

Who should read this book?

• Readers who prefer a simple story with less spice.
• Readers who prefer sensible and slow-paced love stories. 
• Readers who prefer a metaphorical story with relatable problems and deep meaning. 
• Readers who prefer a predictable and simple story. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Beautiful World Where Are You is an amazingly simple story about four adults trying to make sense of life. All Sally Rooney books have that unique aspect and deep meaning behind a simple story. This one also does. Reading Beautiful World Where Are You is a calm experience, it isn’t nerve-wracking. It’s the perfect book to read on rainy days with a cup of coffee.

It’s the perfect book for people who are trying to find beauty in life, or are on the cusp of adulthood and still haven’t figured it out. If you loved Normal People by Sally Rooney, you’re surely to love this one too. This was Beautiful World Where Are You Summary, make sure to add it to your reading list.

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