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Intermezzo

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THE GLOBAL NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD

'I read it in a state of rapture.' SUNDAY TIMES
'A tender, funny page-turner.' OBSERVER
'Come for the romance, stay for the meaning of life.' IRISH TIMES
'A breathtakingly intimate look at love and desire in its many different forms.' RED

From the author of the multimillion-copy bestseller Normal People, an exquisitely moving story about grief, love and family.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties - successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father's death, he's medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women - his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude - a period of desire, despair and possibility - a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

Sally Rooney's book Intermezzo was a bestseller w/c 30/09/2024

©2024 Sally Rooney (P)2024 Faber & Faber
Best of 2024 Editors Select Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Heartfelt Grief

Editorial Review

Sally Rooney raises her game
We may not be getting bucket hats this time, but a new Sally Rooney novel is still an EVENT. And Intermezzo is much more than a must-have accessory, though you’ll see it everywhere this fall. If you’ve been pining for Sally’s liquid sentences and diamond insights, here they are, this time in a tale of two brothers: Peter, a dashing early-thirtysomething who “goes along the surface of life very smoothly” according to Ivan, younger by a decade, a neurodiverse chess prodigy a bit past his prime – both of them navigating romances while facing the recent death of their father. I’m inhaling the vivid scenes and blasé bombshells – “Plain, unappealing people are by no means exempt from the experience of strong passions,” muses Ivan, for one. This is also a first-time departure from Rooney’s signature narrator, Aoife McMahon. I will always love Aoife, but man, Éanna Hardwicke, who you know as Rob from TV’s Normal People, is the perfect voice for this novel: intelligent, charismatic and (yes!) demurely sexy as only Irish men know how. Well played, all around. — Kat J., Audible Editor

All stars
Most relevant
Lots of 1 🌟 and lots of 5 🌟 ...??
For me, complaints about the novel 'going nowhere' and being too introverted are akin to criticising a beautiful slow movement for not being fast enough,
... or dismissing a stark, textured black and white photograph because it doesn't have enough colour.
If you are able to give the novel the space to" breathe" in your imagination it is a revelation.
If that's not your thing then, yes, you probably will be dissapointed.

A boring masterpiece, apparently!

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This book. Where do I start! The brothers relationship, the relationship with Christine (who they never call mum), the grief, the depression, the romantic relationships (sprinkling in a little polygamy). Sally Rooney just has a way of making characters 3D she really brings her characters to life. And the last note is the writing which is of course exceptional.

I love love loved this

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Quite a slow burning novel and initially I did not warm to the main characters but by the end I was in love with them all. Such a beautiful study of love and family and grief.

utterly compelling once I had got to know the characters

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Intermezzo is a remarkable story with deep insights into human nature. It is deeply thought provoking about life's journey, both internal and external, whilst also being a thoroughly enjoyable read. Highly recommend.

A profound novel

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I usually love Sally R but it took me nearly 2 months to go through this audiobook. I believe that the monotone reading was very hard to overcome.

Very slow story. Boring reading

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