Take a photo of a barcode or cover
deedireads 's review for:
Intermezzo
by Sally Rooney
emotional
reflective
tense
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
All my reviews live at https://deedireads.com/.
Happy fall, babes — Sally has come to crack our chests wide open once again.
Sally Rooney writes the kind of literary fiction that I love best: Novels with vivid, flawed characters that walk off the page and into your heart forever. Novels where the relationship between the characters is the entire point and plot, so you feel like you could happily read 100 more pages. (A few other books that give me this feeling are The Most Fun We Ever Had and Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow.)
Here, in Intermezzo, that skill is sharper than ever. The story centers on two brothers whose father recently passed away from cancer. Peter is a lawyer and adjunct professor in his 30s whose heart is torn between a spirited woman in her early 20s and his ex, who broke things off when an accident caused lifelong chronic pain but remains his best friend. Ivan is a chess whiz in his 20s who falls in love with a lovely, older, effectively divorced woman. The two of them come together and push apart, hurting each other and the women in their lives accidentally (and sometimes on purpose) again and again.
Rooney makes all of this conflict feel especially acute by alternating between sharp, devastating dialogue and taut, spiraling inner monologue. Ivan’s chapters are traditionally constructed, while Peter’s are fragmented and run-on and read like something closer to stream of consciousness. It comes together as a deeply effective look at grief, family dynamics, and (as always for Sally) the complicated nature of love and desire.
I could have kept reading this book forever, and it reminded me how badly I need to go back and finish Sally’s backlist.
Thank you, FSG, for the honor to read an early copy of this book!
Happy fall, babes — Sally has come to crack our chests wide open once again.
Sally Rooney writes the kind of literary fiction that I love best: Novels with vivid, flawed characters that walk off the page and into your heart forever. Novels where the relationship between the characters is the entire point and plot, so you feel like you could happily read 100 more pages. (A few other books that give me this feeling are The Most Fun We Ever Had and Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow.)
Here, in Intermezzo, that skill is sharper than ever. The story centers on two brothers whose father recently passed away from cancer. Peter is a lawyer and adjunct professor in his 30s whose heart is torn between a spirited woman in her early 20s and his ex, who broke things off when an accident caused lifelong chronic pain but remains his best friend. Ivan is a chess whiz in his 20s who falls in love with a lovely, older, effectively divorced woman. The two of them come together and push apart, hurting each other and the women in their lives accidentally (and sometimes on purpose) again and again.
Rooney makes all of this conflict feel especially acute by alternating between sharp, devastating dialogue and taut, spiraling inner monologue. Ivan’s chapters are traditionally constructed, while Peter’s are fragmented and run-on and read like something closer to stream of consciousness. It comes together as a deeply effective look at grief, family dynamics, and (as always for Sally) the complicated nature of love and desire.
I could have kept reading this book forever, and it reminded me how badly I need to go back and finish Sally’s backlist.
Thank you, FSG, for the honor to read an early copy of this book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent
Moderate: Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Alcohol