Even in the realms in which readers have become accustomed to editorialization, like mental health-she unflinchingly depicts one character’s unraveling-or sex. Rooney does not gloss over the gritty details. Aspects of romance that most people don’t talk about-the clumsiness of a first kiss, or the discomfort of expressing your feelings for someone you’ve discovered or decided that you love. For young adult viewers, it’s addicting to see the realities of your life played out so vividly. Rooney’s conflicts are simultaneously cinematic and banal, full of high drama while at the same time remaining believable, legitimate, and relatable. All of Rooney’s characters are thus products of their environments, and the reader comes to understand their love as a consequence of the circumstances of their lives.

Each character grows and evolves in ways that are representative of their setting-settings that are evocative and truthful to the world in which we all live, and especially to the world of young adulthood. Rooney’s romances depict two characters whose conflicts within themselves and with the world around them dictate how they come to see the other person. So why do we all love Rooney so much? And what about her narratives make them impossible to put down? Beautiful World, Where Are You is the best-selling fiction book of 2021 a mere three days after its publication. She’s a master of the modern love story, and is so widely recognized as such that her first two novels sold over a million copies in the United Kingdom and Ireland alone. These plots, which so accurately illustrate the plights and pitfalls of authentic young love amidst the prosaic problems of modern life, are where Rooney finds her niche.

Rooney’s latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, published in September of this year, tells the story of 30-somethings Eileen and Alice alongside their respective romantic interests Felix and Simon as they struggle to decipher their feelings for both each other and their ever-changing world.

Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, published in 2017, details the experiences of 21-year-old student Frances and her best friend and former girlfriend Bobbi, as Frances attempts to sustain a relationship with Nick, a married 30-year-old man. Normal People follows Connell and Marianne, two young adults who grow together, then apart, and then back together again in the most authentic of ways throughout their high school and college years. Rooney’s works are simultaneously comforting and gut-wrenching stories that make the mundanities of everyday life feel romantic and hopeful. Normal People, like all of Rooney’s novels, is a lesson in emotional intimacy. Normal People is the second book by Irish writer Sally Rooney, published in 2018 it was adapted into a limited Hulu series in 2020. I tell my friends to check on me if they ever catch me watching Normal People on Hulu.

Two stories sally rooney