I’ve heard Sally Rooney described as “The First Great Millennial Novelist” and I think this book demonstrates that. Unlike Normal People and Conversations with Friends this book focuses less on an individual narration and instead explores the structure of a modern epistolary: our two protagonists Alice and Eileen exchange most of the beautiful work of this book in the form of long emails to one another. These emails reflect on life and the significance or lack thereof of what each one of them does or experiences. Some of these philosophical tangents get long winded and hard to follow but ultimately I think reflect the directionless feeling most people between the ages of 22 and 40 feel these days. Rooney’s signature style of intentionally not including quotation marks when characters speak showcases how thoughts and words are often indistinguishable in modern conversations. It becomes hard to tell what someone says aloud without any notion of another person listening or what someone thinks strongly but never figures out how to vocalize. I found it easy to relate to the characters hopes, pain, heartaches, and desires and I think other readers of the right age and mindset will find the same with this novel.