"Intermezzo" by Sally Rooney

Just what I needed, right? Yet another book club in my life, lol.  (Because I clearly don't have enough to read & otherwise keep me busy, right??  lol). 

This particular book club grew out of the monthly "What Are You Reading?" subscriber threads on Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study Substack newsletter. A couple of her readers suggested forming a book club to read & discuss some of the books we'd been chatting about there. There are actually two clubs:  one based in North America and one in Europe. 

Somehow I wound up with the Europeans! ;)  They meet once a month on Google Meet, weekday evenings their time, which is afternoon my time, but still do-able since I'm retired. ;)  I'm not sure I'll join in every month -- it will depend on the book and what else I have going on -- but if it's a book I want to read, why not take the opportunity to do it now and then have a good chat about it with other readers, right??  ;)  

The first book I'm joining them to discuss (during the first week of March) is "Intermezzo" by Sally Rooney. I haven't read Rooney's previous book before this one, "Beautiful World, Where Are You" -- yet? -- but I read (and re-read) and loved "Normal People" a few years back (and gobbled up the TV adaptation!), followed by her first novel, "Conversations With Friends" (reviewed here -- and here, after re-reading -- and here, respectively). 

"Intermezzo" is the story of two brothers, mourning the recent death of their father. There's Peter, a 32-year-old human rights lawyer, who can't quite quit his longstanding relationship with Sylvia, a literature professor who is unable to have sex with him since a car accident left her in chronic pain. (The exact nature of her injuries is unclear.)  Meanwhile, he's become a "sugar daddy" of sorts to Nina, a much-younger girl who sells racy photos of herself as a side hustle to keep the landlord at bay.   

Then there's Peter's much-younger brother Ivan, a geeky 22-year-old chess prodigy who becomes involved with 36-year-old Margaret. Margaret is separated from her abusive, alcoholic husband, wary of the age difference between her and Ivan and leery about what people might say if/when their relationship becomes public.   

The two brothers are very different -- and grief, and their different ways of dealing with it, has only emphasized the chasm that's grown between them over the years. 

I'd heard raves about this book before picking it up -- so I was a bit surprised to find it a little hard to get into.  It moves between Peter and Ivan's viewpoints (as well as Margaret's), with a clear shift in the writing style for each character. When we're inside Peter's head, the prose is staccato -- short, choppy sentences -- and it's sometimes hard to tell who he's referring to.  Ivan's sections are written in long, detailed, rambling paragraphs. He clearly has anxiety issues, and I wondered whether he was "on the spectrum," as we now say.  

Nevertheless, I stuck with it, and although I had my doubts at the outset, it ultimately won me over -- particularly in the final 1/3 or so, as the brothers begin to realize the toll that their grief has taken on them, and on their relationships, with each other and others. I started off thinking 3 stars, max.  By midway through, it was more like, okay, 3.5, rounded up to 4.  By the end:  a solid 4 stars, and I'd probably rate that last section at 4.5.  I still have a very soft spot in my heart for "Normal People" (which I rated at 4 stars), but this one ranks right up there too.  

4 stars. 

(P.S. & FYI: The steamy sex scenes that seem to be a staple of Rooney's books are also present here in abundance!)(lol!)  

This was Book #6 read to date in 2025 (and Book #3 finished in February), bringing me to 13% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) on track to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books."