jay's Reviews > Intermezzo

In a deliberately quiet almost hissing voice Ivan says: I actually hate you. I’ve hated you my entire life.
Without stirring, without looking around to see whether the other diners or staff are watching them, Peter just answers: I know.


hate when i dislike a book and go to read negative reviews but none of them hate it for any reason that even remotely resembles my sentiments. “It’s just people talking for four hundred pages” the fuck do you want? explosions? go watch a marvel movie.


rooney stuns with a writing that has never been this distinctive in her works before. the change in writing style between pov chapters brilliant. peter’s short, rapid fired, sometimes incoherent thoughts the best part. (of course most will hate and criticise this stylistic choice cause in the booktok age of reading experimentation is a big no-no)

but quite frankly style is the only thing i liked with this one.


the ivan/margaret chapters (and why on earth were the ivan chapters mostly from margaret’s point of view anyway? i thought this was supposed to be about the brothers?) feel like reading about a twelve year old falling in love with an adult. ivan just does not read like a 22 year old at all. making this age gap relationship more cringe and at times simply unbearable than the actually very mundane thing that it is. i guess ivan is supposed to be on some kind of autistic spectrum but i find his portrayal highly questionable.

peter’s chapters while more emotionally complex simply don’t go anywhere. his inner turmoil doesn’t really reach its climax and instead he gets an out of nowhere saccharine ending where everything gets handed to him on a silver platter and we have to pretend that he’s conflicted about that for the last five pages like yeah, woe is him.


overall, this book might have profited from a harsher editing with the ivan chapters especially being way too long and dragging on unnecessarily. somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.


- - -

usually depressive episodes hit me by surprise but i'm glad to know that i can plan one for september