In recent years, Irish author Sally Rooney, 33, has been considered a wunderkind of the literary world, thanks to the breakout success of 2017’s Conversations with Friends, 2018’s Normal People and 2021’s Beautiful World, Where Are You.

Through alternating narratives of two brothers, the novel shows what happens when we do not know what to do with our grief.

The Irish writer’s keenly intelligent new novel swaps her formidable female leads for two brothers summoned together by grief