I was reluctant to add to the praise of this author – or like her book. I mean Sally Rooney has already had most of the plaudits that can be thrown at a young debut writer: shortlisted for a string of book awards, and winner of others including the Costa Novel of the Year, and long listed for the Man Booker Prize as well as the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Sally Rooney
She’s published by Faber & Faber who can afford to throw money at her marketing and promotion. She’s young and she comes from County Mayo so she ticks boxes (age and un-London).
And in the book she’s writing something that would seem to me to be a coming of age story featuring two unlikely teenagers.
She uses the present tense. And she doesn’t use quotation marks.
Really? How can I, riven as I am with (ahem) preconceived ideas and resentment, like this author and this book?
Childishly, I thought: Oh, come on.
