In recent years, Irish author Sally Rooney, 33, has been considered a wunderkind of the literary world, thanks to the breakout success of 2017’s Conversations with Friends, 2018’s Normal People and 2021’s Beautiful World, Where Are You.

Though a casual reader (or dismisser) of Rooney might think all her books are the same, Beautiful World, Where Are You?, Rooney’s previous novel, was itself an experiment, with a dual narration style departing from its more straightforward predecessors.

Sally Rooney ditches the style that made her ‘voice of a generation’ - 5/5 With her fourth novel, Rooney has discovered her full literary prowess – the reward is transcendent

The Irish writer’s keenly intelligent new novel swaps her formidable female leads for two brothers summoned together by grief

In Sally Rooney’s new novel, two grieving brothers find solace in questionable romantic pursuits. Peter and Ivan Koubek, aged 32 and 22 respectively, have recently lost their father.

Intermezzo is not a flawless novel. Naomi is not as well fleshed out as the other characters; there a slightly jarring habit of front-loading sentences with adverbs (“mindlessly she nods her head”; “distractedly she pushes her hair back”); and at times Peter’s sections are so staccato that they require intense focus just to be able to follow them.