This is probably my favorite of Rooney’s books. As always, it is well-observed and gets a lot of details about millenial life correct: the amorphousness of romantic relationships, moving around a lot in large cities, even the music (a party plays Angel Olsen in the background). But the thing that really impresses me is how well Rooney captures how technology is weaved in the fabric of millenial life, from using Google Maps to go to a new restaurant, to idly googling one’s name, to stalking exes on social media, to accidentally opening another person’s phone to porn. This book could not have been written by someone any older.
The disparity between the characters’ leftist politics and their decidedly bougie lifestyle has been much commented on, so I won’t recapitulate that here. There’s also been some talk about the email chapters being stilted and unrealistic (I certainly don’t maintain long correspondences with friends in that way, writing like I’m writing a letter in the 19th century), weaving dorm-room philosophizing about capitalism and climate change with updates on romantic liaisons. The philosophizing also seems satirical because it’s so cringe, but, like, have you seen Twitter? People talk like this all the time. I think Rooney is clever enough to know it’s cringe while simultaneously earnestly attempting to capture something true about the way people like Alice and Eileen talk.
B.D. McClay also has interesting thoughts about the role of religion. I think she’s right that Alice will eventually become Catholic. Rooney’s portrayal of Simon is really interesting though, because it does not have the spiritual agita that you might find in, say, Flannery O’Connor and Graham Greene. Whatever Simon is tormented by internally, he does not externalize it, and Rooney does not give the reader access to it. That is, Simon is the only explicitly Catholic character in the novel, but is the least Catholic in spirit! Even Felix, who is impatient with religion, has more depth here than Simon. So at most Simon reads like an emotionally stunted man, unable to open up to Eileen.