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Intermezzo

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Intermezzo

By: Sally Rooney
Narrated by: Éanna Hardwicke
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Summary

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
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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
Great narrator, but forgot that Rooney’s characters stumble towards self-expression which means that there are LOTS of three word sentences. All the time. Like this. Which is unbelievably irritating to listen to.

Doesn’t translate well to audiobook

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I was invested from the first chapter. The narrator is great! I love the way Sally writes about unconventional relationships.

Love this

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Absolutely blown away by the author’s exceptional mastery of the English language. Her emotional intelligence and ability to articulate her characters feelings is beyond belief. The novel is perfectly narrated, his voice and nuance is outstanding. Moved to tears and laughter by this extraordinary work. Will have to listen again once I have recovered from this heart wrenching and uplifting experience

Exquisite prose brilliantly narrated

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Each character so brilliantly developed I was invested in them all. Loved it and cried way too much.

Beautiful story, beautifully narrated

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The 2 main characters and side characters well developed and relatable …. The Irish narration enhanced the story

Loved the emotional connections in this book…archetypal Rooney

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