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Intermezzo

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Intermezzo

By: Sally Rooney
Narrated by: Éanna Hardwicke
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THE GLOBAL NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

'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

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 Inspiring Heartfelt Thought-Provoking 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
I was apprehensive not having Aoife McMahon narrate, but Éanna Hardwicke's narration is perfect. His reading is so subtly heartbreaking.

beautiful narration

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This intimate novel about a relationship of 2 brothers is so compelling with stream of consciousness writing and conversations. Brilliant !
This wouldn’t be easy to narrate but Eanna is brilliant too. Utterly moving, sad and beautiful!

Outstanding performance and writing

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Sally has an extraordinary ability to tap into the universal feelings we all experience—self-doubt, self-reflection, our complex relationship with love, the tension between selfishness and the desire to do good, and the frustration of things spiraling out of control—emotions we often think are unique to ourselves. Though my life looks nothing like her characters’, I felt their experiences echoing my own, making the story deeply personal. She brings these moments to life with such beauty and clarity, allowing me to connect with the novel on a profound level. I thoroughly enjoyed every part of it.

My only criticism is with the audiobook reader. They were mostly great, however, I felt that the voicing of the female characters, particularly Margret, could have used more direction. She often sounded uninterested or lacking enthusiasm, even in moments where the context suggested she was fully engaged.

Great book for me. I hope you enjoy as well.

A writer that forces you to be empathetic

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Beautifully written. Loved the narrator. Great characters. Very moving story. I really loved this book.

Beautiful

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To start, I have trouble working out the plot. Then I could not put it down, following the ins and outs of the story.

If you don’t get moved by this novel, you don’t have a heart.

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