Beautiful World, Where Are You

‘Beautiful World, Where Are You is Rooney’s best novel.’ THE TIMES

*The Sunday Times and Global number one bestseller*
*Winner of Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards*

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 worry about sex and friendship 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 tour de force. The dialogue never falters, and the prose burns up the page.’
GUARDIAN

‘Rooney’s strongest writing thus far . . . There is a touching honesty and truthfulness in these pages, along with a quiet brilliance.’
FINANCIAL TIMES

‘The book moved me to tears more than once . . . Rooney’s best novel.’
THE TIMES

‘Rooney’s best novel yet. Funny and smart, full of sex and love and people doing their best to connect.’
Brandon Taylor, NEW YORK TIMES

‘Written with immense skill and illuminated by an endlessly incisive intelligence.’
IRISH TIMES

‘Beautiful World, Where Are You is not just worth reading. It’s worth thinking about.’
IRISH INDEPENDENT

‘Brilliantly done: gripping, steamy, unbearably sad.’
TELEGRAPH