5 Of The Best Sally Rooney Books In Order

---

“I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”

---

If you’re wondering what order to read Sally Rooney books, you’re not alone. With her sharp, intimate take on relationships, class, and modern life, Rooney has become one of the most acclaimed voices in contemporary literary fiction. But, if you’re new to her work – or looking to revisit it – knowing the best Sally Rooney books in order can make all the difference. Today at What We Reading, we’re curating Sally Rooney’s novels in order of release to help you decide which book you should pick up first. From the quiet intensity of Conversations with Friends to the global phenomenon of Normal People, each novel offers something slightly different, all while staying unmistakably Rooney. Whether you’re here for a clear Sally Rooney reading order or you’re trying to figure out her best novel, this list will help you get going! 

---

Conversations With Friends (2017)

First up on our list of Sally Rooney books is her 2017 debut novel, Conversations with Friends. Frances is a twenty-one-year-old college student, an aspiring writer, and best friends with Bobbi. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa’s orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by Melissa’s husband, Nick, a bored actor. 

However amusing their flirtation seems at first, it soon gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expects. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances’ intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorientating way of living from moment to moment. Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations with Friends is wonderfully alive to the pains and pleasures of youth. 

---

Check Out The Best Books Like Conversations With Friends 

---

Normal People (2018)

Arguably, Sally Rooney’s most recognised novel, on the back of its hit on-screen adaptation, 2018’s Normal People, is the tale of Connell and Marianne. Connell is popular and well-adjusted, a star of the school soccer team, while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal. 

A year on, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world, while Connell hangs in the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their college years, the pair circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save each other. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly sparse prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship in Normal People. 

---

Check Out The Best Books Like Normal People 

---

Two Stories (2020)

Two Stories is a quick collection of short stories by Sally Rooney. Mr Salary is Nathan. Sukie moved in with him years ago because her mother was dead and her father was difficult, and she had nowhere else to go. Now they are on the brink of the inevitable. 

In Colour and Light, Aidan and Pauline watch a firework display together. They are almost strangers. But their stumbling connection pains Aidan more than any casual flirtation. He now feels utterly confused as to why they seem to be arguing, confused to the point of abrupt despair. 

Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021)

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse and asks him if he would like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a breakup and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known ever since childhood. 

Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are all still young – but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude one another, they worry about sex and friendship and the times they live in. Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world? Beautiful World, Where Are You was named a Book of the Year in The Times, The Guardian, The Irish Times, and The Financial Times. 

---

Check Out The Best Books Like Beautiful World, Where Are You

---

Intermezzo (2025)

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent, and seemingly unassailable. But in the wake of his father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women – his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, the antithesis of his glib older brother. 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 bursting. 

---

Check Out The Best Books Like Intermezzo

---