Sally Rooney Books

Sally Rooney is a bestselling fiction writer from Ireland. She has written three published novels: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), and Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021), and one novella, Mr Salary. Two of her books have been made into critically acclaimed television series. The first to hit the screen was Normal People starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal. It was released in 2020 as a 12-part series and was a co-production of BBC Three. In 2022, the same production company released her novel Conversations with Friends into a 12-episode miniseries. Her work is deemed a commercial success by her multiple bestsellers. Rooney is even regarded as one of the foremost millennial writers.

Before watching the highly acclaimed television series, check out the Sally Rooney Collection 4 Books Set Paperback/ Hardback. With all four books in this handy and affordable collection, all for under £25, this makes for the perfect gift for any Sally Rooney fan. This collection contains three novels and even her short story, Mr Salary. 

Conversations with Friends

Considered to be a novel about the harshness of friendship, lust, and jealousy intertwined with the complications o

f adulthood, Conversations with Friends is Rooney’s first published novel. This novel is divided into two books following the story of two college friends and ex-lovers, Frances and Bobbi, who perform spoken-word poetry together. The pair meet and befriend a married couple in their thirties, Nick and Melissa. Over the course of the following few months, as the duos spend more time together, Frances and Nick begin to develop an interest in each other, while Melissa and Bobbi are more drawn to each other. 

Normal People

Rooney has quickly become the face of millennial authors. Her novels all portray a feeling of love, insecurity, identity and class. These themes are present throughout her bestselling novel, Normal People, seeing Marianne and Connell try to fight their feelings for each other whilst coming to terms with their own demons that they are refusing to address. Marianne and Connell grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but that’s all they have in common. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked. In contrast, Marianne is a loner. Their on-again-off-again relationship over time is complicated by their social and socio-economic divisions, exploring the subtlety of class, the electricity of first love and the complex (and often complicated) entanglement of family and friendship. 

Beautiful World, Where Are You

Beautiful World, Where Are You is a question that is deliberated by the two female

protagonists of the novel. Best friends and now on the cusp of thirty, the pair repeatedly grapple with their struggles in figuring out the life they want to live and how to find meaning in a troubled world. The novel centres around four people- Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon- who live their mundane millennial lives in Ireland against the backdrop of the complications of living and loving in the 21st century. 

About the Author 

Born in 1991 in Ireland, Sally Rooney is an Irish author and Screenwriter. She is considered the best young writer of her generation and possesses an incredible talent for capturing raw emotion within her novels. She was even an executive producer and writer for the screen adaptations of Conversation with Friends and Normal people. Rooney has won many awards and accolades for her work, most notably, she won Costa Book of the Year in 2018 and British Book of the year in 2019 for Normal People.