Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Family: can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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CBR17Bingo: “I” for “Intermezzo” President Obama recommended Normal People by Sally Rooney back in 2019, and I was very impressed by the writing. I was already interested in reading Intermezzo, (2024) Rooney’s latest novel. But when Obama recommended Intermezzo as well, it only became a matter of time. I have to admit that the synopsis did not draw me in, and I was a little concerned that Intermezzo would not hold up to Normal People. In a nutshell: there are two Irish brothers, separated by ten years in age, and even more in […]

“In fact it’s the very reason I root for us to survive – because we are so stupid about each other.”

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

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Sally Rooney is a divisive figure. It’s easy to put down her work as self-involved millennial bullshit. It’s equally easy to paint her detractors as oblivious neoliths. Still, I feel that the most common criticism levelled at her work is also precisely the point.  Beautiful World, Where Are You is about Alice and Eileen, two thirty-ish university friends who lead very different lives. Alice is a successful novelist; she has published two books and travels the world doing interviews. Eileen, intelligent and once promising, works […]

“The meaning of something so fleeting, life. Here and gone.”

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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Brothers Peter (32) and Ivan (22) could not be more different. Peter is a successful human rights lawyer and university lecturer, attractive, a social butterfly. Ivan, on the other hand, is an underemployed, underachieving chess player. He’s awkward and while he’s not ugly, his second-hand clothing (a deliberate choice made for ethical, not financial reasons) and braces make him a far cry from his more glamorous brother. They are both still grieving from the death of their father from cancer, a few months prior. Instead […]

Not Bad, but Not for Me

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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This was not a bad book, but it has confirmed that I am not the right audience for Sally Rooney. I didn’t really care for Normal People but thought I’d give this a chance because some people who didn’t like Normal People did like this one. And I did indeed prefer Intermezzo, but not as much as I’d hoped. A large part of the problem is that I disliked Peter, one of the POV characters. His self-pity, while realistic in its duration, grew old, and I didn’t care for […]

Is That Sweet? I Guess So

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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The first time I tried Intermezzo, I didn’t last ten pages. This was the fault of Conversations With Friends. I read it earlier this year in anticipation of Intermezzo and found it disappointing. I gave it a reluctant 4-stars but with more distance, I find myself continuing to dislike it. I never cared for the central relationship and while Rooney has talent, it’s evident that this was her first book and she was not yet fully confident in telling stories like this. My first go round with Intermezzo, I’m again introduced […]

Endless Endgame

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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Peter and Ivan Koubek are brothers dealing with the recent death of their father. Peter and Ivan aren’t really close because of a ten-year age-gap between them and their vastly different personalities. Peter is a lawyer who works for a big firm but also handles crusades like discrimination cases. He is gregarious, a gifted public speaker, and popular with women. Ivan is a 22-year-old former childhood chess prodigy trying to get his game back in form and finally attain the grandmaster status predicted for him […]



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