“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy held me captive, staying up all night immersed in its pages, awakening the next morning with a lingering sense of melancholy. Stephen King’s works, especially “The Shining,” share that unique ability to make you eagerly anticipate the next page, constantly wondering what twist awaits.
Actual romances are not like romance stereotypes when they are well-written.
But Sally Rooney is not a romance writer and people who read her books expecting them to be romances will be disappointed, it’s a much bleaker and cynical world view.