As in her other books, Rooney places her deeply profound - but often irrelevant - political musings throughout. The author’s latest work bears all the markings of a Sally Rooney novel - fractured and undefined relationships and witty characters, with pithy philosophical musings placed jarringly in between. The story is told mostly through emails between Alice and Eileen, and readers must suspend their disbelief in imagining that these are really letters between two friends, as the two move with such ease from discussions on modern romance to the bronze age. Eileen, who works at a literary magazine, is Alice’s closest friend from college who battles through a significant breakup and becomes involved with her childhood crush Simon.

Alice, a recently successful author jaded by fame and the publishing industry, meets Felix, a factory worker, on a dating app. The book follows a group of friends through their romantic and professional lives. Later on in the novel, she writes, “After all, when people are lying on their deathbeds, don’t they always start talking about their spouses and children?”

There is a similarly skeptical question at the center of “Beautiful World, Where Are You” - are stories about relationships important amid the human strife that faces the world in the 21st century? Directly addressing her critics, Rooney argues they are, and that relationships are at the core of every looming plight facing the world today. It’s rare to find such a cynical view on contemporary fiction inside a novel of the same genre.

Where are you beautiful world