Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Intermezzo

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Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

176 reviews

all4knicks's review against another edition

3.5

challenging emotional slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I struggled with this book because of the slow pace, and disliking the characters, especially when the book was so character driven. Loved Normal People and even though it was similarly complex, this one didn’t click as much for me.

Content Warnings

ajknowlan's review against another edition

2.5

dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I’ve read all of Sally Rooney’s other books and have enjoyed them a good deal but this is the first one I disliked. Though the book did pick up a bit about 2/3s of the way through, I found it painfully slow and simply just depressing. The main male leads were unlikable people and all of their character improvement happened within the last chapter of the book. Their storylines felt like trauma porn for people who are not in and not open to therapy.

Content Warnings

ksclary05's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Sally Rooney writes infuriating books that are still wonderful to read but also all of her characters need to go to therapy

Content Warnings

kjm19's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I cried on a plane finishing this book.

It might be my favourite Sally Rooney novel yet, which I would not have expected when I first opened the book, and had to reread the first few pages several times!

The sheer depth to which she writes these characters and their lives is insurmountable. They are flawed, philosophical, complex human beings who reflect the world around them (and the reader!).

The way Rooney writes has become even more sophisticated since BWWAY. I think the previous book was a necessary transition from the tremendous normal people and has enabled her to get to this point. The weaving of perspective, dialogue and tone is magic.

Content Warnings

julia201's review against another edition

4.0

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

meagwhalen's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Lovely. I didn’t love Rooney’s more recent work (normal people set a high bar), but this was a great exploration of sibling relationships, power dynamics, etc.

Content Warnings

ashleybrianne08's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

xelasrecords's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

He thought of death as an event, something that would happen and then be over. And indeed, when it came to be over, there was relief, there was a certain freedom with that, to be free of the anxiety of waiting. In the months since, Ivan has embraced this sense of freedom, he can see that now. He has made impulsive decisions, he has fallen in love, his life has been transformed, in an uncontrolled rush of energy and feeling. To live, he has needed to live, to overcome the terrible event, yes, it was needed. But now that the event has come and gone, the funeral, the various rituals, only the loss remains, which can never be recuperated. The event is over, the event has been overcome, and yet the loss is only beginning. Every day, it grows deeper, more and more is forgotten, less and less really known for certain. And nothing will ever bring his father back from the realm of memory into the reassuringly concrete world of material fact, tangible and specific fact: and how, how is it possible to accept this, or even to understand what it means?

I'm incapable of rating anything by Rooney less than 5 stars because she always outdoes herself with every release.

I wrote in my book journal: if you listen closely enough, you can hear my heart crack. Reading Intermezzo is less of immersing myself into other people's fictional lives and more like chewing glass with my demons roaring at my face. I'd avoided this book for months because it's about grief and complicated relationships and familial resentment—basically everything I was going through. Chronic pain has space here too.

But there's bliss in the pain of being understood so intimately by a stranger. For so long I'd been desperate for someone to comprehend my feelings yet knowing that I have to bury them deep inside me, so this was a dark comfort that I could fall back on when I needed it, and leave when it got too much. It took me 1.5 month to finish for that reason.

Rooney is clever in depicting mundane situations and charting micro emotional journeys. She's adept in making me feel stuck in Peter's depressive thoughts and Margaret's anxiety and Ivan's anger. Sometimes I get annoyed with all the characters, but they're also painfully relatable. It's as if they each hold a piece of myself, be it from the past or present.

I'm also thankful for the nuances Rooney shows in age gap relationships, dating when your divorce isn't finalised yet, the situationship where your ex still wants you around but her pride doesn't let you to actually date her so you fall for a younger girl at her behest and now she's jealous but they're actually okay with you seeing two women at the same time, social shame, and how to balance it all when you just lost your father.

❗SPOILER❗

I didn't expect it to end on a hopeful note especially from Peter's POV, but it's so fitting. Everything falls nicely—rare, for Rooney. Perhaps the moral of the story is that polyamory fixes everything💖

Jokes aside, I'm glad that all five of them are going to have a Christmas dinner together in the father's house in Kildare. First Christmas without father. Imagine. Not that I have to.

The image of that life: how beautiful, how painful, to believe it could after all be possible. For so long it has hurt too much even to think. And now everything hurts so much all the time that to think makes no difference, to think even lends a kind of sweetness to the terrible pain. The life they could have had together.

Content Warnings

101mayas's review against another edition

4.25

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

This book felt like a punch to the heart lol. Sally Rooney just writes the most realistic characters and dialogue.

Content Warnings

brigg_sy's review against another edition

4.5

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

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