Part of Sally Rooney’s awesome talent is her ability to make any character relatable by vividly describing their experience & attitudes. And while the characters in her previous novels end up feeling like friends, the characters in this book felt like me. I resonated so deeply with one character in particular, but was able to see myself in all of the characters.

I really like the form that this book takes: the story alternates between two story lines (which eventually converge), with the chapters alternating between the narrative and a transcript of the emails between the two main characters. The narrative chapters are told in the third person, and it feels like the narrator is staying at arms length from the scene: an impartial observer, relaying events, without any insight to the emotional state of the characters. Instead, Rooney describes silences, facial expressions; only that which is seen is written. The email chapters, then, provide a look behind the scenes.

I feel like this imbues the book with the tension & confusion of real life: real humans have no narrator to tell us what someone else is feeling, or what we are feeling. It’s also very gratifying to read the transcribed thoughts of these women: very shy, reserved, not “taking up space” in public, but they are absolutely exploding with big ideas over email. it feels like a cultural commentary on gender expectations? Or maybe just on a type of person.

Relationally, the book is the story of people with low self-esteem trying to be in love. And the takeaway is, it’s extremely hard to be in love, or be loved, if you don’t have any love for yourself.

It was a beautiful read, and it was also more comfy than her other books; there were fewer moments of excruciating awkwardness or emotional pain than in her previous books. There was also a LOT of sex.

Highly recommend.