02 May 2025
Intermezzo By Sally Rooney Review And Book Club Questions
Reviewed by: Melissa Ng
Quick Facts
Book Publication Date: 24 September 2024
How I Read It: Borrowed from my local library
Where You Can Find Intermezzo by Sally Rooney: Amazon Australia* | Kobo US* | Kobo Canada*
Content & Trigger Warnings: Death, grief, alcoholism, age gap, suicidal ideation, sexual content, chronic pain
Synopsis Of Intermezzo
Peter and Ivan Koubek are brothers, but they seem like two very different people leading two very different lives.
Peter, a successful Dublin lawyer in his thirties, appears put-together on the surface. But behind the scenes, he’s medicating himself to sleep and stuck between two complicated relationships: Sylvia, his long-time love, and Naomi, a much younger college student with whom he shares little but late nights and detachment.
Ivan is a 22-year-old competitive chess player. He describes himself as socially awkward and emotionally withdrawn — possibly on the spectrum, though the book never commits to that label. When he meets Margaret, a woman more than a decade his senior, their romance escalates quickly into something intense.
Intermezzo is a study of emotional distance, family disconnection, and the ways we try (and often fail) to understand each other.
Is Intermezzo Spicy?
Yes. There are several scenes that describe sexual content.
Intermezzo Review
Let’s start with the obvious: Sally Rooney’s writing style is divisive.
If you’re not a fan of her no-quotation-mark approach, Intermezzo isn’t going to change your mind. Personally, I found it distracting and it would pull me out of the story.
In a 2018 interview with STET about her novel Conversations with Friends, Rooney is asked about her lack of quotation marks and her response is, “I don’t see any need for them, and I don’t understand the function they perform in a novel, marking off some particular pieces of the text as quotations. I mean, it’s a novel written in the first person, isn’t it all a quotation?” I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty pretentious to me.
Stylistic preferences aside, I have mixed feelings about this novel.
What Worked:
✔️ The dual POV structure gives each brother a distinct voice. Peter’s chapters are clipped, scattered, and reads like a stream of consciousness. Ivan’s are longer, more meandering, and oddly clinical.
✔️ The book is at its strongest when it focuses on the brotherly dynamic between Peter and Ivan. There’s a quiet tension that simmers between them, shaped by years of missed connections, withheld affection, and that one awkward moment where Ivan walked in on Peter crying and did… absolutely nothing. That scene lingers in the background, silently colouring everything else.
What Didn’t Work:
❌ Ivan and Margaret’s romance is uncomfortable. Not inherently because of the age gap, but because Ivan comes across as emotionally and socially underdeveloped.
❌ Peter’s storyline goes nowhere. There’s no real emotional payoff. He has some pretty serious inner thoughts and turmoil throughout the book that seem to tie up nicely with a bow at the end.
❌ The female characters are thinly written. They exist primarily as emotional mirrors for the men in their lives. Naomi, Sylvia, and Margaret each feel like plot devices more than people — despite having plenty of page time.
❌ It’s long. At 448 pages, it’s a slow literary burn with very few actual sparks. Rooney’s signature introspective style can be moving, but here it often feels indulgent.
There’s a quote in the book that sums it up perfectly:
“Much has been disclosed, a proliferation of new facts and details, and yet somehow she doesn’t feel she understands Ivan’s relationship with his brother any better than she did before.”
Same, girl, same. That’s how I felt at the end. I learned a lot about Peter and Ivan, but I’m not sure I actually understood them.
Final Thoughts
This was probably more of a 2.5 star rating for me but I rounded up to a 3 as there were some parts in the last third of the book that I thought were interesting.
This might be a case of it’s a me problem and not the book. If you’re already a fan of Sally Rooney’s work, you’ll probably enjoy this one too. It’s just not for me.
Memorable Intermezzo Quotes
Last weekend, with the light coming through the curtains, she and Ivan lay half-awake in each other’s arms: and when he looked at her, she seemed to feel herself understood completely, as if everything that had ever happened to her, everything that she had ever done, was accepted quietly into his understanding.
Sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can’t be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn’t their fault and it’s not yours either.
Intermezzo Book Club Questions
- What were your favourite and least favourite moments in the book?
- Did you enjoy the dual POV style? Did you prefer Peter or Ivan’s chapters?
- What do you think of Sally Rooney’s writing style? Love it or hate it?
- Why do you think the lack of quotation marks is so polarising?
- How would you describe the relationship between Peter and Ivan?
- Was Ivan justified in blocking Peter after their fight?
- What are your thoughts on the age gap between Ivan and Margaret? How does it compare to Peter and Naomi’s dynamic?
- Why do you think their father’s death didn’t bring the brothers closer?
- Who do you think should have given the eulogy at the funeral?
- Do you think Peter can genuinely maintain relationships with both Naomi and Sylvia? Who would you pick for Peter?
- Would Peter and Sylvia have worked out if they stayed together after her accident?
- What did you make of the moment where Ivan found Peter crying and walked away? How did it shape their relationship?
- Do you think Peter and Ivan could have done anything differently in their relationship?
- How were the topics of grief, addiction, chronic pain, and suicidal ideation handled?
- What did you think of the female characters — were they well written?
- What did you think of the ending?
- What do you think happened to the characters after the novel ends?
- Have you read any other books by Sally Rooney?
- If so, where does Intermezzo rank?
- If not, are you interested in reading more of her novels?
- If Intermezzo was adapted into a movie, which actors would you cast for each character?
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