This book took a long time for me to get into, which was really disappointing considering how much I've loved Sally Rooney's other books (except Conversations with Friends, which honestly just annoyed me the whole time). I debated whether to give this book three or four stars, but settled on four stars because the second half got better and more powerful with every page. The writing style in the beginning is distracting, hard to follow, and a little obsessed with itself, but as the novel went on, it settled into prose that made more sense and felt much more emotionally resonant. Neither Peter nor Ivan is particularly sympathetic - Peter thinks he is incredibly morally superior but treats the women in his life truly horribly, while Ivan has said many misogynistic incel things in the past - but their relationship was fairly compelling, and as usual Rooney details grief and complex human emotions with compassion and searing accuracy. The woman in this novel deserve truly so much better (although Ivan and Margaret have a sweet and lovely connection), but that's par for the course I guess.

As you can see from this rambling and contradictory review, I'm not totally sure how I feel about this book - I should probably go with three stars, but I did find the last third or quarter meaningful and touching, so who knows.