Sally Rooney has been slammed for ‘glorifying eating disorders’ in her books, and ‘going on about how thin and white’ her main leads usually are.
The Irish author, 33, who has penned a number of successful works – including Normal People and Conversations With Friends – has faced fresh backlash on social media.
The Irish author, 33, who has penned a number of successful works – including Normal People and Conversations With Friends – has faced fresh backlash on social media.
‘Sally Rooney writing female characters like she thinned skinnily down the stairs,’ one wrote.
Another quipped: ‘I think Sally Rooney would scream if she saw a fat person.’
Writing in Vogue this week, journalist Emma Specter highlighted passages from Sally’s books which appeared to attract mire, including a scene in her most recent Intermezzo, where side characters are described as ‘small and portly’ while the ‘real action as ever, is trained squarely on thin characters’.
She also referenced a moment in Conversations With Friends where Frances laments that her ‘bones still jutted out unattractively on either side of her pelvis’ and another snippet in Normal People, in which Marianne is showing ‘her pale collarbones like two white hyphens’.
It’s not the first time the writer has faced criticism for her depictions of thinness.
Posts from as far back as four years ago have hit out about Sally’s ‘red scare levels of eating disorder glorification’.
Others remarked that while her writing is ‘genius’, her books could ‘absolutely give [someone] an eating disorder’.
‘Every Sally Rooney novel is like “the thin, pale girl skinnily moved her small, petite, frail arms”,’ one said.
Another added: ‘Sally Rooney describing her characters like “Alice rested her slight frame and put the book down skinnily, her bracelet jingling on her thin wrist as her bony legs relaxed.”‘
A third agreed: ‘Sally Rooney books are sooo triggering it’s so “today I woke up and consumed my black coffee delicately and wafishly. I am smoking a cigarette for lunch because I am so emotionally complex and emaciated. Did I mention I am very thin and very pale”.’
However, some felt that Sally’s descriptions aren’t meant to be taken in a positive light.
‘Characters who skip meals and are thin in Sally Rooney novels also tend to be deeply unhappy if not mentally unwell,’ one wrote. ‘Hope this helps!’
Another defended: ‘Thinness is the default in fiction, so I find it strange that Sally Rooney gets it in the neck for writing thin characters when her work isn’t actually fatphobic.’
FEMAIL has reached out to Sally’s publishers for comment.
It comes as, yesterday Sally’s new book Intermezzo had fans queuing around the block as they waited to snatch up her latest novel following its release.
After building up a cult-like following with a string of addictive and relatable novels, it appears self-described Marxist Sally, from Ireland’s County Mayo, has done it again with her latest novel.
Fans were pictured lining up outside bookshops across the UK and Ireland today, as they desperately sought to get their hands on the writer’s fourth release.
Dozens of shops including London‘s Book Bar, exclusively opened their doors at 8am, with a number of live streams to cater to demand.
One shop in Dublin, where the new book is set, was pictured with tens of fans lining up for the doors to open.
Book Upstairs shared a post on social media saying they were ‘totally blown away’ by the turnout.
Accompanied by a picture of a packed book shop, they wrote on social media: ‘Very grateful to all these lovely early birds for choosing to shop independent and making it such a great morning. Feeling a lotta love for our Books Upstairs community. What a buzz.’
After securing a copy of the new release, fans sought refuge from the chilly September morning, as they were pictured enjoying a hot drink inside the Dublin book shop.
Meanwhile in the UK, fans queued for early doors at dozens of venues across the country, picking up tote bags, t-shirts, bookmarks and other merchandise being given away at some stores.
Book Bar in London offered exclusive t-shirts to their first 90 arrivals, as well as signed independent bookshop edition, personalised book jackets, and other goodies for for first-comers.
A mass of young women piled into Gower Street Waterstones in London just as the sun was starting to rise this morning. Posting on their X profile, the shop revealed a slew of fans lining up outside the shop.
Prior to its release, critics hailed the new release, with the Guardian dubbing it ‘breathtakingly intimate’ and the Telegraph claiming it proves Sally’s greatness as a political writer.
Published by Faber, Intermezzo follows two brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, who are grieving the loss of their father, and on the surface, appear to have little in common.
Peter is an established lawyer living in Dublin, successful in his field and assured of himself.
‘But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women,’ the summary reads.
One of those women being his first love Sylvia – a person he shares an emotional bond with, but they lack a physical relationship after an accident left her unable to have penetrative sex.
That takes Peter to the second woman in his life – 23-year-old hedonistic college student Naomi, a connection that satisfies Peter’s physical needs.
His brother, on the other hand, leads a much different lifestyle and is a 22-year-old competitive chess player who admittedly struggles with social interaction.
The summary explains: ‘Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.’
‘For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude – a period of desire, despair and possibility – a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.’
Sally came from humble beginnings with her own life experiences heavily influencing her work.
Born in Castlebar, a town of 10,000 or so people in County Mayo, a rural part of western Ireland, her mother was a teacher and father a technician who raised her with strong socialist values.
And this is seen massively in her work. All three novels are partly set in – or have characters from – rural western Ireland, while she has described herself as a ‘solitary child’ like Marianne in Normal People and went to Trinity College Dublin, like the protagonists in her first two novels.
Since Conversations with Friends came out in 2017, Sally’s three novels have sold more than 1.3 million copies in the UK alone – and that’s not counting pandemic sales which rocketed her back to the top of the best seller list thanks to the success of the TV adaptation of Normal People.
Normal People was the BBC‘s most streamed show of 2020, with an astonishing 62.7million views. It had a further 3 million views on Ireland’s RTÉ Player, and even more on Hulu.
Her novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, sold more than 45,000 copies in the UK in its first week of release, making it the bestselling hardback fiction title of 2021.
The writer started her first novel, Conversations With Friends, in 2014 after starting a master’s degree in American literature. When her essay about her debating experiences was spotted by a London literary agent, who asked to see more, the student sent her the manuscript.
Within months it was the subject of a seven-way bidding war between publishers. The rights eventually sold for a rumoured five-figure sum, and it was published in 12 languages at once in 2017.
