William Ngaruiya’s Reviews > Beautiful World, Where Are You > Status Update

'I feel so frightened of being hurt- not of suffering, which I know I can handle, but the indignity of suffering, the indignity of being open to it.'

'Could it be that easy? We just have to weep and prostate ourselves and God forgives everything? But maybe it's not easy at all - maybe to weep and prostate ourselves with genuine sincerity is the hardest thing we could ever learn how to do. I feel certain I don't understand how to do it.'

I am thoroughly enjoying this book- I don't want to finish it.

"If God wanted me to give you up, he wouldn't have made me who I am."

"So of course in the midst of everything, the state of the world being what it is, humanity on the cusp of extinction, here I am writing another email about sex and friendship. What else is there to live for?"

"And isn’t death just the apocalypse in the first person?"

I may not be Sally Rooney's intended target audience but she writes so beautifully and it's almost as if she's writing just for me.