“Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney

Terrible news. I finished reading this book two weeks ago but never blogged about it. And now… I definitely haven’t forgotten about it, but nothing is fresh on my mind. Here's what I can dredge up from the muck: I enjoyed reading it, as expected where Sally Rooney is concerned, but for me it wasn't on the same level as Conversations with Friends or Normal People. It's OK, that's a high bar. And it's solidly on par with Beautiful World, Where Are You. (Although I just reread my blog posts for those three books, which made me think maybe I didn't love the experience of reading Normal People as much as my obviously almost non-existent memory tells me I loved it.)

To me, this book had less in the way of so-high-level-as-to-be-almost-unbelievably-intelligent conversations between characters. (Or maybe these conversations were so expected in a Sally Rooney book that I didn't even notice them this time around?) Which helped in the arena of not making me feel inferior. Not that the characters were idiots or anything--there were still a lot of really high IQs floating around--but they found other paths to superiority (like world-class chess skills and incredible beauty). 

I must admit I did not reach critical mass with this book, but that's OK too. I don't have to be desperate to finish a book in order to enjoy it. It's actually kind of a relief to be able to put a book down any time I need to. And I definitely did not have to force my way through, which is never a good indication.