Intermezzo: A Novel
Sep 2024 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
3.9star
15 reviews
Ebook
464
Pages
family_home
Eligible
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About this ebook
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | A National Indie Bestseller
Short-listed for the An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year | Long-listed for the DUBLIN Literary Award
Named a Best Book of the Year and a Critics’ Pick by The New York Times | Named an Essential Read by The New Yorker | Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, Financial Times, Vogue, The Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, The Times (UK), Apple Books, and more | A USA Today, People, and Associated Press Top 10 Book of the Year | One of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2024 | One of Chicago Public Library’s Favorite Books of the Year
An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.
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.
Short-listed for the An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year | Long-listed for the DUBLIN Literary Award
Named a Best Book of the Year and a Critics’ Pick by The New York Times | Named an Essential Read by The New Yorker | Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, Financial Times, Vogue, The Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, The Times (UK), Apple Books, and more | A USA Today, People, and Associated Press Top 10 Book of the Year | One of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2024 | One of Chicago Public Library’s Favorite Books of the Year
An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.
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.
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Ratings and reviews
3.9
15 reviews
Ellen Johnson
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June 13, 2025
Just as good, if not better, than Normal People and definitely better than Conversations With Friends. If you like Rooney's other books, don't miss this one!
Kari Ruth
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August 10, 2025
dear lord please know i really need help to find scent set of parents and i dont have any yet in tired world and i cant live any longer without having scent set of parents in this world
Putri Hari Cahyani
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December 21, 2025
frankly, need more one month to finish this book because the chapters feels bored and pacing slowly but mid of chapter i feel that story bring us new things and thoughts
About the author
Sally Rooney is an Irish novelist. She is the author of Beautiful World, Where Are You; Conversations with Friends; and Normal People. She also contributed to the writing and production of the Hulu/BBC television adaptation of Normal People.
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