A review by riften
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

4.0

Intermezzo captures how grief is so annihilating you actually just have to never think about it in order to survive. So we just wade through the negative space - things not said, not thought, not observed out of self-preservation (Peter’s motif is literally closing his eyes). One of the unspoken things that resonated with me is the Koubek brothers’ mixed-ness; their unrealised identities as sons of an immigrant father. And perhaps this partly explains why there is such a significant chasm in how they remember their father.

But also, Sally Rooney, a true lover, promises that love is the little sanctuaries people can build in hopeless times. I want to experience again for the first time the magic of Ivan and Margaret’s first meeting.