Mean Girl Moment 9/26

Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney is by all standards, a perfect person in our culture. She’s a widely read novelist in age when people don’t read and what they do read is barely literate smut. Her novels are turned into popular television shows with international distribution that launch careers. She’s a Marxist who uses her platform to speak about genocide in Palestine. She’s beautiful but not in an intimidating way. She’s Irish which means she’s both foreign enough to be interesting to American audiences but familiar enough that it’s not alienating. She’s the complete package, which means we need to get the bottom of what’s wrong with her.

She’s on her fourth book and has yet to lose momentum. Enough people liked Beautiful World Where Are You that she wasn’t totally discounted. Enough people also didn’t read it, myself included, so her cultural cache stayed in tact. Four books is enough to cement her reputation as good no matter what. When her 6th or 7th book comes out we’ll be able to say “It’s Sally Rooney so you know it’s going to be at least decent.” Until then we’re still deciding. It could still be a fluke. That’s why everyone wrote something this week decrying her accolytes. Maybe it’s not her, maybe its her fans.