An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

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.

This was my first foray into Sally Rooney. I’ve had “Normal People” on my TBR and my Hulu watch list for waaaay too long. I’ve heard nothing but rave things about that book, and when this book was released, I bought it simply because of FOMO. While this one contains two things that I REALLY hate (very long chapters and the omission of quotation marks – seriously, why is this a thing?) I still really enjoyed it.

The novel focuses on and alternates between two brothers – Peter and Ivan – who recently lost their father to a long battle with cancer. The brothers haven’t spoken in a while, and things are awkward at the funeral. As the book progresses over the next few weeks after the funeral, we watch as the brothers try to reconcile what went wrong between them. They’re both also struggling with where their lives are going, their relationship with a mother who always seemed to like her stepchildren more than her own sons, and romantic lives that are struggling to move forward.

What stands out most in this book is the depth of the characters. Peter is a successful lawyer in his mid-thirties who seems to have it all together, but as we delve deeper into his inner thoughts, we see the cracks in his facade. Peter financially supports and occasionally has sex with a young woman in college. He seems to love her but refuses to commit, probably because he is still in love with Sylvia – his ex-girlfriend who struggles with chronic pain after an accident.

Ivan, on the other hand, is a 22-year-old, socially awkward chess player who is still trying to find his place in the world. When Ivan meets Margaret, a 36-year-old woman with her share of struggles, he develops feelings for her, and for the first time in a long time, he feels a sense of hope. Their connection is unexpected and affects both of them in different ways. As Ivan falls in love with Margaret, and she with him, he sees a bright future ahead, while she wonders how long he could love a woman fourteen years older than him.

Rooney’s prose is both poetic and raw, and while I didn’t care for the omission of quotation marks (again – I really hate this) and typically get annoyed with overly long chapters, it didn’t bother me as much in this book. This was primarily because, despite the length, the chapters moved quickly and also held a lot of meaty insight into the characters.

The characters are incredibly complex, and I really enjoyed spending time with them. While Peter is kind of a dick, I really loved Ivan and couldn’t get enough of him and his relationship with Margaret. And can we talk about his relationship with his dog? So sweet! What I found especially interesting was how Rooney gives us even more insight into her characters in how she structures the chapters. Peter’s chapters were focused primarily on Peter and how he interacted with others, while Ivan’s chapters were often divided between him and Margaret. This helped illustrate how Peter’s view of the world was all about him, while Ivan was more open and willing to share his space with someone else for more than personal gain.

Overall, this is a powerful novel that dives deep into complex family relationships and grief. Admittedly, when I finished the book I didn’t understand the hype, but the more I’ve set with it, the more I like it. The characters stick with you and probably will for a while. If you’ve not yet read this one, I would recommend it – especially if you’re a fan of character-driven literary fiction.

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