Intermezzo

Where should I even start... I am a victim of pretty book covers. I won't lie, I loved taking this out of my bag to read in the tube everyday. Can I say the same thing about actually reading it? Absolutely not. That part was a struggle.

This was the first book I read from Sally Rooney and after watching Normal People years ago, I had some reasonable expectations for this one to be good. Especially after seeing people raving about the book over the mini series made me think I would like Sally Rooney's writing, but boy was I wrong. Why did no one warn me about her writing style? Maybe this is just me, but her sentences had me losing my focus allllll the time and as a result really getting bored of the book right off the bat. At first, I chalked it up to my poor attention span or maybe just a bad reading day. But after talking to people who were also reading the book and checking out some Goodreads reviews, I realised - it wasn't just me. Her writing style is, well, to put it lightly, not my cup of tea.

Let me be clear: I don't mind authors who play around with language, or even the lack of quotation marks. But could she at least make it clear when a different character is speaking? Is that too much to ask? I'd love to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it felt like I was constantly getting lost. It was kind of exhausting.

Now, let’s talk about the plot. I’ll admit, the book cover and blurb were super misleading. I genuinely thought I was about to dive into a chess-heavy plot, something deep and intense like The Queen’s Gambit, maybe with more psychological insight into the minds of genius players. That got me excited. But instead, what I got was two guys thirsting over women and spiraling into toxicity. Add a weirdly large age gap into the mix, and it was just… not what I signed up for. I don’t mind relationships with some complexity or moral grey areas, but this just felt off.

I don't know about you but when it comes to age gap relationships, I immediately put the responsibility on the older one of the pair. Why did Margaret sleep with a 22 year old chess player with autism who was grieving the loss of his dad? Absolutely no reason. In what world does that not sound like abuse?

And Peter—what even was his character? For most of the book, we barely get to know anything about him. He’s just there, doing drugs, sleeping around, and letting a girl the same age as his brother stay with him rent-free. That's it? Never heard of that story before.

I was going through Goodreads reviews to see I wasn't insane for hating this book and I think I found my people. A review by "George" does a great job of listing the sex themes in the book: women offering sex, being used for sex or withholding sex to be eventually seduced.

Despite the immediate disappointment in the first 100 pages after Margaret's introduction to the book, for the love of the cover, I patiently waited to start loving this book. I really tried. It just never happened. I have to say, in the maybe last 50 pages when the boys start talking to each other, it started to make a bit more sense but it certainly wasn't enough.

All I have to say is, don't let yourself get fooled by the pretty cover.

To finish off, here are a few of my favourite Goodreads reviews on this book:

Magdalena: "Under the guise of ambitious prose that aims to contribute to the discussion on grief lies a book about two brothers complaining about life and banging inappropriate women."

Leanne: "If I could give no stars I would"

Ra: "Not to be evil but what a colossal waste of time"

Ramo: "Absolute, utter unreadable trash. This reads like it was written by a 12 year old hidden under a blanket in the time they were meant to be sleeping cause they have to wake up for church choir tomorrow."

Honestly, same.