A review by emanon_
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

3.75

I feel like I should’ve loved this book more than I did…

I’m unsure of my rating but let’s try and rationalise things, shall we?

Writing

It was overall okay. At points it felt too detailed. Almost as if Sally was trying to fill in pages rather than develop a coherent storyline.

We really didn’t need to read about Ivan’s short charger and lack of battery in his phone.

Having said that, the end was very rushed. The last chapter could’ve been divided into two and the second part could’ve stayed open ended, I would’ve preferred it to be be open ended.

It’s not a happy story, it didn’t require a happy ending.

The dialogs could’ve been formatted better. I understand the lack of separation of sentence and thoughts when going into internal monologues and how it’s gets confusing and all that. This is fine, we think that way, no problem. With the dialogues on the other hand, it was a little in the way of enjoying the conversations. I needed quotations.

On a better note though! The internal monologues were amazing. That’s a nonnegotiable. I liked how tangled they got because it was a good representation of how we think and overthink.

Characters

We never got a Naomi or a Sylvia POV and that really stuck out to me. Why did we get Margaret’s? She’s not exactly more special, if something she’s less, especially in comparison to Sylvia’s mysterious accident (which was never revealed lol). I think I would’ve also liked to know more about Naomi’s background but that’s me being extra picky.

Moving away from the ladies I need to need to just make a statement here and say that Ivan was a horrible human being. Him being portrayed as someone peculiar really didn’t work as a buffer. He was iffy from the start and it got revealed to us that he’s misogynistic by nature and his good deeds are only driven by internalised guilt. He’s never sure what his feelings and opinions and he’s waaay to quick to jump to conclusions and has a bad temper. Peter on the other hand is better. Flawed but better. Self conscious , reflective and willing to talk things through. He’s the brother that’s in touch with his feelings. In addition to that, I feel like I must say that his suicidal blip was that, a blip. Intrusive thoughts rather than continuous ones. We would’ve heard of it earlier in the book if it was a recurring internal battle. Man needs a rehab, yes, maybe, but his life is not in danger, I don’t think so at least.

Finally, I think Alexis was invented for the sole purpose of including the old house in the book and its inevitable use…

Not even sure how to finish this review. I wouldn’t say don’t read it because it was good but I have just become a really critical reader so we’re left with this mess of an afterthought to deal with🤷🏻‍♀️