Read If: you enjoyed Rooney's other books, you like wallowing in the agony of other people's poor decisions, you can't get over that one person you've been in love with forever.
Rooney set the bar high with Normal People, and Beautiful World is a decent but obviously inferior follow up.
She doesn't do much different in terms of relationships between her characters, and in that way Beautiful World is a bit boring. It's just young women and men circling each other and trying to figure out love and sex.
But what Rooney does right, she does REALLY right - there's a vulnerability and truth to her characters that is beautiful and gets right to the heart of shared experiences. It's still an aching read, although perhaps too similar to Normal People in some ways.
