I really quite liked Normal People by Sally Rooney plus the NY Times book crew really liked her latest book, so I picked up Beautiful World, Where Are You at the library.
And it was not to my liking.
I did not like any of the four main characters. Nor did I find their choices very smart. The last sixty pages or so were a slog. There were a couple times where I wished there would be some extraordinary outside event happen, like a car crash or illness. Anything to pull the novel out of the rut it was in.
I think Rooney has a style and characters that are just on the tipping point for me in terms of likability. Normal People stayed at the point but Beautiful World and Alice, Eileen, Simon and Felix fell over.
For this novel, pick two beers from breweries that you don’t normally like and do the same and pick two styles that you don’t like and taste them and try to match them to the four main characters.
Interesting. I’ll have to read Rooney’s “Normal People” book. The miniseries was dark, but compelling. Sounds like she can’t match that book’s success on a literary level, though most writers don’t even write one good book, so one hit is still quite an achievement.
It may just be that the new characters just were not redeeming to me.