Book Review: Belong to me - M. de los Santos

“Sometimes, happiness feels so fragile…So what do we do about it?...Live. Forget that it’s fragile. Live like it isn’t” 

I normally give a novel about a third maximum to see if I like it or not. In case of a negative response, I abandon without remorse. Too many books, so little time, after all.
So I tried, I read the first few chapters of this novel and really try to get into the story and to enjoy the writing style, but I just couldn't. I cannot say exactly why, it sounds a nice plot, interesting chracters, and yet I just could not "feel" the story, the writing style did not catch my attention or whatsoever so I had to abandon.

“I stand here on this spring day in the center of my life. Chaos, din, and beauty. For a moment, I am still.” 

Overall rating:  4     Plot: 5     Writing style: 4      Cover:  7

Title: Belong to me

Author: Marisa de los Santos
Publisher: Avon
Pages: 496
Publication year: 2008

The Plot:
A devoted city dweller, Cornelia Brown surprised no one more than herself when she was gripped by the sudden, inescapable desire to leave urban life behind and head for an idyllic suburb. Though she knows she and her beloved husband, Teo, have made the right move, she approaches her new life with trepidation and struggles to forge friendships in her new home. Cornelia's mettle is quickly tested by judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt. Perfectly manicured, impeccably dressed, and possessing impossible standards, Piper is the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she would find in suburbia. A saving grace soon appears in the form of Lake. Over a shared love of literature and old movies, Cornelia develops an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman who has also recently arrived in town, ostensibly to send her perceptive and brilliant son, Dev, to a school for the gifted.

The Author:
Marisa de los Santos is the New York Times bestselling author of LOVE WALKED IN, BELONG TO ME, FALLING TOGETHER, THE PRECIOUS ONE, and her newest novel, which continues with characters from the first two, I'LL BE YOUR BLUE SKY.
Marisa has also co-authored, with her husband David Teague, two novels for middle grade readers: SAVING LUCAS BIGGS and CONNECT THE STARS.
Marisa and David live in Wilmington, Delaware with their two children, Charles and Annabel, and their Yorkies, Finny and Huxley. Marisa is currently at work on her sixth novel for adults, I'D GIVE ANYTHING. 

Book Review: The diary of a bookseller - S. Bythell

This is a diary, a memoir, so it is not very easy to review it.
I must say though that it really really made me want to open my own bookshop! despite all the awkard customers described in here and all the hard work to survive as a business, I still dream of becoming a bookseller myself on day. Fascinating!
It is not the most amusing book I read about being a bookseller (Jen Campbell's ones are the ones that make you laugh out loud), it is a pleasant and interesting read.
And the curiosity of visiting Wigtown and The bookshop is now very high.

Overall rating:  7     Plot: NA     Writing style: 7      Cover:  10

Title: The Diary of a Bookseller

Author: Shaun Bythell
Publisher: Profile Books
Pages: 384
Publication year: 2018

The Plot:

Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover's paradise? Well, almost ...

In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.

The Author:
Shaun runs Wigtown’s The Bookshop, the largest second-hand bookshop in Scotland set in its only officially designated ‘National Book Town’. When not working amongst The Bookshop’s mile of shelving, Shaun’s hobbies include eavesdropping on customers, uploading book-themed re-workings of Sugarhill Gang songs to YouTube and shooting Amazon Kindles in the wild.

Book Review: Agatha Raisin - There goes the bride - M. C. Beaton

Adventure number 20 in the Agatha Raisin serie!
Agatha is her usual rude, no nonsense, straightforward, kind-hearted self. However, she is a bit down in the dumps in this episode, depressed about her age, looks and detecting skills. And this has affected my mood while reading the book, while before Agatha always made me laugh with her bluntness.
Her former husband comes out seriously badly from this novel, if I did like him a tiny bit before, I really dislike him now!
The crime itself is quite a gripping one, even if maybe not particularly realistic.
Not my favourite novel in the serie, I hope Agatha regains her confidence and wit in the next book!

Overall rating:  6     Plot: 6     Writing style: 6,5      Cover:  7

Title: Agatha Raisin - There goes the bride

Author: M.C. Beaton
Publisher: Constable
Pages: 290
Publication year: 2009

The Plot:

Agatha's former husband James is engaged to be married to a beautiful, young woman and Agatha has been kindly invited to the wedding. To take her mind off this, Agatha decides she has fallen for Sylvan, a Frenchman she met at James' engagement party. To distract her still further she decides upon a holiday and flies to Istanbul, where unfortunately she bumps into James and his fiancée not once but twice - convincing him she is stalking them. So when the bride is murdered on her wedding day, naturally Agatha is Suspect Number One - but then matters are turned on their head when the dead bride's mother engages Agatha to take on the case of her murdered daughter! And very soon Agatha's own life is in danger while she tries to solve the mystery of the corpse bride while fighting off (halfheartedly) the advances of a very attractive and determined Frenchman!

The Author:

M.C. Beaton was born in Glasgow, Scotland. She started her first job as a bookseller in charge of the fiction department at John Smith & Sons Ltd. While bookselling, by chance, she received an offer from the Scottish Daily Mail to review variety shows and quickly rose to become their theatre critic. She left Smith’s to join Scottish Field magazine as a secretary in the advertising department, without any shorthand or typing experience, but quickly got the job of fashion editor instead. She then moved to the Scottish Daily Express where she reported mostly on crime. This was followed by a move to Fleet Street to the Daily Express where she became chief woman reporter.After marrying Harry Scott Gibbons and having a son, Charles, Marion moved to the United States where Harry had been offered the position of editor of the Oyster Bay Guardian. They subsequently moved to Virginia and Marion worked as a waitress in a greasy spoon in Alexandria while Harry washed the dishes. Both then got jobs at Rupert Murdoch’s new tabloid, The Star, and moved to New York. Anxious to spend more time at home with her small son, Marion, supported by her husband, started to write Regency romances. After she had written close to 100, and had gotten fed up with the 1811 to 1820 period, she began to write detective stories under the pseudonym of M. C. Beaton. On a trip from the States to Sutherland on holiday, a course at a fishing school inspired the first Hamish Macbeth story. Marion and Harry returned to Britain and bought a croft house in Sutherland where Harry reared a flock of black sheep. When her son graduated, and both of his parents tired of the long commute to the north of Scotland, they moved to the Cotswolds, where Agatha Raisin was created.While Marion wrote her historical romances under her maiden name, Marion Chesney, as well as several pseudonyms (Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, and Charlotte Ward), because of her great success with mystery novels as M. C. Beaton, most of her publishers both in the U.S. and abroad use the M. C. Beaton pseudonym for all of her novels.

Book Review: The Cactus - S. Haywood

"As you're aware, I've always been the author of my own destiny. We can chose how to define ourselves, and I define myself as an autonomous and resourceful woman. What I lack in Tera of family and other close personal relationships is more than compensated for by my rich inner life, which is infinitely more constant and dependable." 

I really enjoyed The Cactus, witty and comical, but still quite poignant and bitter-sweet. I loved Susan, this peculiar woman who is so independent and strong minded, I like how she doesn't really care about what other people thinks, how she can socialist but she is mostly happy with herself so she doesn't feel the need of other people company. She is so business like in everything, from her relationships to her planning for outfits. She made me laugh and I also found her very sweet when she slowly make space in her life for other people, Kate the neighbor and Rob.

It reminded me of Eleanor of Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman (read my review here) which I loved. Both women are extremely particular in their personalities and their set ways of living. 

Maybe the end is a bit fairy-taly but it's the beauty of it too. 

A novel I'd highly recommend, beautifully written and so engrossing. Miles from my life, yet I felt I was Susan for a while. A must read.

"A child would look at me and think, not 'estranged sister' or 'work colleague' or 'woman I sometimes see on the Tube', but 'mother'. That mattered. Mattered more than could be economic pained simply by logic alone. It mattered that I was not a disappointment, not a source of dissatisfaction, frustration or regret. I was confident my child would consider that I was fulfilling the parental role in an exemplary manner. Failure isn't in my vocabulary. But what if...?"

Overall rating:  8,5     Plot: 8,5     Writing style: 8,5      Cover:  7

Title: The Cactus

Author: Sarah Haywood
Publisher: Two Roads
Pages: 384
Publication year: 2018

The Plot:

At 45, she thinks her life is perfect, as long as she avoids her feckless brother, Edward - a safe distance away in Birmingham. She has a London flat which is ideal for one; a job that suits her passion for logic; and a personal arrangement providing cultural and other, more intimate, benefits. Yet suddenly faced with the loss of her mother and, implausibly, with the possibility of becoming a mother herself, Susan's greatest fear is being realised: she is losing control. When she discovers that her mother's will inexplicably favours her brother, Susan sets out to prove that Edward and his equally feckless friend Rob somehow coerced this dubious outcome. But when problems closer to home become increasingly hard to ignore, she finds help in the most unlikely of places.

The Author:
Sarah Haywood was born in Birmingham. After studying Law, she worked in London and Birkenhead as a solicitor, in Toxteth as an advice worker, and in Manchester as an investigator of complaints about lawyers. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University, and lives in Liverpool with her husband, two sons and two ginger cats.

Book Review: The history of wolves - E. Fridlund

"Later, I could get that drizzle feeling just about any time I saw a kid on a swing. The hopelessness of it—the forward excitement, the midflight return. The futile belief that the next time around, the next flight forward, you wouldn’t get dragged back again. You wouldn’t have to start over, and over.” 

A very peculiar novel, that's for sure.
The title, firstly, is very misleading in my opinion, it is not a good summary of what the book is about.
The writing style is pleasant, rich of descriptions of nature and of the settings.
The plot is quite unsettling: on one side there is a very lonely teenage girl, Linda, who lives in a former community with two parents who don't seem very involved with her life. A girl who has no friends, who is bullied at school and who clearly wants to belong somewhere.
On the other side there is a family, a picture perfect one almost,  with a doting mother, a smart 4 years old and a strict but loving father. They kind of "adopt" Linda, as a babysitter for the little kid, but in reality as part of the family.
And then all goes pear shaped and the end is catastrophic.
I did not like the lack of explanation on why the family behaved like that. It left the novel unfinished, uncompleted, in my view, and that quite irritated me.
I did not understand the link between the teacher accused of sexual harassment with everything else.
I did find the novel quite depressing, Linda doesn't really change or grow or improve her life at all. She remains in a state of misery and, when she finds potential happiness for a while, she then leaves it to go backwards.
Overall, a novel I did not like, it did not leave me anything, nor gave me any kind of emotions, it just left me with an uneasy sense of desolation.

Overall rating:  5     Plot: 4     Writing style: 5      Cover:  7

Title: The history of wolves

Author: Emily Fridlund
Publisher: W&N
Pages: 288
Publication year: 2017

The Plot:

How far would you go to belong? Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in an ex-commune beside a lake in the beautiful, austere backwoods of northern Minnesota. The other girls at school call Linda 'Freak', or 'Commie'. Her parents mostly leave her to her own devices, whilst the other inhabitants have grown up and moved on. So when the perfect family - mother, father and their little boy, Paul - move into the cabin across the lake, Linda insinuates her way into their orbit. She begins to babysit Paul and feels welcome, that she finally has a place to belong. Yet something isn't right. Drawn into secrets she doesn't understand, Linda must make a choice. But how can a girl with no real knowledge of the world understand what the consequences will be?

The Author:

Emily Fridlund grew up in Minnesota and currently resides in the Finger Lakes region of New York. 
Her fiction has appeared in a variety of journals, including Boston Review, Five Chapters, New Orleans Review, New Delta Review, Chariton Review, The Portland Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly.  She holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Fridlund's collection of stories, Catapult, was a finalist for the Noemi Book Award for Fiction and the Tartts First Fiction Award. It won the Mary McCarthy Prize and will be published by Sarabande in 2017. The opening chapter of History of Wolves was published in Southwest Review and won the 2013 McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Fiction.

Book Review: City of friends - J. Trollope

"Work and life aren't in opposition to each other, they enrich each other."

The message I got out of this book, or maybe that I did want to get out of it, it 's that women can juggle both career and family and seek power and it's ok to want to do so. It's also ok to say "I'm struggling" and the modern society and businesses shoule embrace helping people in reaching a good work-life balance in order to be successful.
In summary, I found this novel an inn to the successful working modern woman.
Then, it is also a book about friendship between women, even if it's a bit if an on-and-off kind of friendship, which actually makes it even closer to reality.
Of the four women of the book, I loved Gabi, who is not afraid to say that she loves her job and that it somehow defines her. I felt very close to her view on this and it was great and refreshing to have a character in a novel that combines a career woman with a mother and wife modern figure.
Pleasant and easy to read, I'd recommend this novel to all the working mums as an anti-guilt remedy.
I'd also recommend it to all the "bosses" that want to be modern and to all the men who wants to put themselves in a woman's shoes for once.

Overall rating:  6,5     Plot: 7     Writing style: 6      Cover:  9

Title: City of friends

Author: Joanna Trollope
Publisher: Mantle
Pages: 336
Publication year: 2017

The Plot:

The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings, but instead, long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby. The girls, now women, had been best friends from the early days of university right through their working lives, and for all the happiness and heartbreaks in between. But these career women all have personal problems of their own, and when Stacey's redundancy forces a betrayal to emerge that was supposed to remain secret, their long cherished friendships will be pushed to their limits . . .

The Author:

Joanna Trollope has written several highly-acclaimed contemporary novels: The Choir, A Village Affair, A Passionate Man, The Rector's Wife, The Men and the Girls, A Spanish Lover, The Best of Friends, Next of Kin, Other People's Children, Marrying the Mistress, Girl from the South and Friday Nights. Other People's Children has been shown on BBC television as a major drama serial. Under the name of Caroline Harvey she writes romantic historical novels. She has also written a study of women in the British Empire, Britannia's Daughters. Joanna was born in Gloucestershire and lives in London. She was appointed OBE in the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to literature.

Book Review: Un calcio in bocca fa miracoli - M. Presta

Questo libro mi conferma che le storie sui vecchietti burberi ma simpatici e i miei gusti letterari non combaciano affatto.

Per quanto abbia provato, non sono riuscita ad andare oltre la meta' di questo libro, semplicemente non mi interessava, non mi incuriosiva vedere come la storia sarebbe progredita.

De gustibus...

Overall rating:  4     Plot: 5     Writing style: 5      Cover:  7

Title: Un calcio in bocca fa miracoli

Author: Marco Presta
Publisher: Einaudi 
Pages: 194
Publication year: 2014

Plot:

"Io non ho più interesse per niente e nessuno, rubo penne, passeggio per strade degradate, sbavo per una portinaia e basta, basta così", dice di sé il narratore di questa storia, un vecchiaccio sgradevole e scorretto, burbero, perfido. Irresistibile. E se la portinaia di cui si è invaghito - una donna sulla sessantina, attraente, 'sciabile'- accetta la corte di un barista con i denti rifatti; se la sua ex moglie, che era "un vortice di generosità, di capricci, di ovulazioni, di piccole iniziative stupefacenti", lo guarda come se fosse il suo gommista; se con la figlia parla per lo più del tempo, a lui non resta che raccontare, divagando, di tutto questo. E raccontare di Armando, il suo migliore amico. La parte buona del carciofo che è lui. Una persona rara, gentile, positiva. Con un progetto folle in testa. Sì, perché se tutti vogliono lasciare qualcosa dopo la loro morte, "chi una tabaccheria avviata, chi un grande romanzo, qualcun altro una collezione di lattine di birra", Armando vuole lasciare un amore. Si è messo in testa che due ragazzi del quartiere che ancora non si conoscono, Chiara e Giacomo, sarebbero una coppia perfetta, e intende dare una mano al destino. Pretesa, questa, che l'intrattabile vecchiaccio reputa ridicola e tenta di osteggiare in tutti i modi. Ma dopo aver impiegato oltre settant'anni per convincere gli altri a non contare su di lui, si ritroverà coinvolto dalla fastidiosa, insistente, implacabile fiducia nella vita di Armando.

The Author:

Attore, scrittore, conduttore radiofonico e televisivo italiano.
Diplomato all'Accademia d'Arte Drammatica "Silvio D’Amico", ha lavorato in teatro con Luca Ronconi, Aldo Trionfo e Andrea Camilleri, per poi approdare alla radio. Insieme ad Antonello Dose dal 1995 scrive e conduce la trasmissione Il ruggito del coniglio, insignita di numerosi premi nazionali (tra gli altri il premio Flaiano e il premio Satira Politica a Forte dei Marmi).
In televisione ha lavorato come sceneggiatore. 
Come autore e presentatore ha realizzato, insieme ad Antonello Dose, Dove osano le quaglie, una trasmissione televisiva andata in onda per 3 edizioni su Rai 3 il sabato sera. Come autore ed attore teatrale, in questi ultimi anni, è protagonista di diversi spettacoli.
È inoltre autore della raccolta di racconti Il paradosso terrestre (Aliberti Editore 2009, Einaudi 2012) e dei romanzi Un calcio in bocca fa miracoli(2011), Il piantagrane (2012), L'allegria degli angoli (2014) e Accendimi (2017), tutti pubblicati da Einaudi. 
Da alcuni dei suoi libri sono stati tratti degli audiolibri, pubblicati da Emons.
Ha lavorato anche come sceneggiatore al film Opopomoz di Enzo D'Alò.

Book review: Miss you - K. Eberlen

I will truly miss Tess and Gus, after being "with them" from when they were. 18 till their mid thirties. A slow burner, this novel slowly introduced you to the lives of this guy and girl, who both but separately go through loss, love, adulthood and keep missing each other for a heartbeat.

They are both very human, with qualities and negatives points of their characters. But they both become so familiar page after page, year after year.

And I loved the settings, London especially, it is a novel that clearly states its love for the city and that makes you want hop on a train and go discover it. 

Even if the title shouts romantic book, in reality it's not, it's a novel about life and choices and just things that happen and how you deal with them. 
A really good read, engaging and sap and happy and very down to earth. 

Overall rating:  8     Plot: 8     Writing style: 7      Cover:  7,5

Title: Miss you

Author: Kate Eberlen
Publisher: Pan McMillan
Pages: 480
Publication year: 2016

The plot

Today is the first day of the rest of your life is the motto on a plate in the kitchen at home, and Tess can't get it out of her head, even though she's in Florence for a final, idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever - but not in the way she expects.Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically. Gus tries to be a dutiful son, but longs to escape and discover what sort of person he is going to be.For one day, the paths of an eighteen-year-old girl and boy criss-cross before they each return to England.Over the course of the next sixteen years, life and love will offer them very different challenges. Separated by distance and fate, there's no way the two of them are ever going to meet each other properly . . . or is there?

The author

Kate Eberlen grew up in a small town thirty miles from London and spent her childhood reading books and longing to escape. After studying Classics at Oxford University, she had lots of different jobs before training to teach English as a Foreign Language with a view to spending more time in Italy, a country she loves. Kate is married and has one son.

Book Review: The colour purple - A. Walker

"I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way...I can't apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to... We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful...We realize that we are as ourselves unlimited and our experiences valid. It is for the rest of the world to recognize this, if they choose.” 

I don't know why I have not read this novel before! I heard about it of course but I just managed to pick it up the other week when I spotted it at my local library.
Such a great novel! Set in the 30s in Southern US, it's a great and very nude and crude picture of the African American society of that time.
Celie is the main character and, through her letters to God first and then to her sister Nettie, we follow her life from her teenagers years until her sixties.
The letters she writes, in a sort of diary, are quite candid in how she describes the physical, sexual and psychological violence she is subjected to by her stepfather and then her husband.
But Celie is strong and keeps going until she finds love and support in the unexpected figure of Shug Avery, a blues singer and Celie's husband lover, who encourages Celie to reach her freedom and independence.
It is a great story of hope and strength of character. It is also a shocking overview of how the black community was still treated, and women in particular, not even a hundred years ago.
A must read, an ever green classic.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” 

Overall rating:  9     Plot: 9     Writing style: 7,5      Cover:  8

Title: The color purple

Author: Alice Walker
Publisher: W&N
Pages: 288
Publication year: 1982

The Plot:

Set in the deep American South between the wars, THE COLOR PURPLE is the classic tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her beloved sister Nettie and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker - a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually Celie discovers the power and joy of her own spirit, freeing her from her past and reuniting her with those she loves.

The Author:
Alice Walker won the Pulitzer prize and the American Book Award for The Color Purple. She is the author of many bestselling novels, essays and collections of poetry including Meridian, By the Light of My Father's Smile and The Third Life of Grange Copeland.
She lives and teaches in San Francisco

Book Review: The mothers - B. Bennett

 

After the first few pages I almost abandoned this novel, finding it quite slow and difficult to follow. However after the first third, I really liked this book, how loss and friendship and love are so interconnected in Nadia. The "what if" remains constantly with her during the years and in part defines her as a person and as a woman.

I found fascinating the church setting, a very closed group, where "the mothers", in other words the old women, keep an eye on everything and everybody and in equal part they judge and they nurture, they blame and they forgive.

The mothers is a very depth novel about becoming an adult in a semi protected environment, where, however, a lot of tragedy happens. It is about Nadia' s strength of character and her way to survive her losses. 

A very good read, interesting and compelling. I found the writing style a bit difficult then the mothers were "talking", the slang was not that easy for me to understand, but otherwise the style is smooth and well paced.

I would surely recommend it.

Overall rating:  7,5     Plot: 7,5     Writing style: 7      Cover:  7

Title: The mothers

Author: Brit Bennett
Publisher: Riverhead
Pages: 288
Publication year: 2016

Plot:

It's the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully manoeuvre, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: what if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt. 

The Author:
Born and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett graduated from Stanford University and later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. Her work is featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel.

February 2018 Wrap up

February has been a very good month to me: I had my birthday, I started a new job, I read some amazing novels! Here we go then:

(click on the titles for a full review)

The power - N. Alderman

A book really worth reading, different and strange and fast paced.

Rating:  7,5 out of 10

Voi due senza di me - E. Gucci

Un libro triste, tragico, ma anche bello nella potenza del sentimento che lega i protagonisti.

Rating:  7 out of 10

Eileen - O. Moshfegh

A complete disappointment for me, dull, boring, slow.

Rating:  5 out of 10

The mothers - B. Bennett

A very good read, interesting and compelling.

Rating:  7,5 out of 10

The old man and the sea - E. Hemingway

Not what I was expecting, dense and beautiful, but also too slow.

Rating:  6 out of 10

Miss you - K. Eberlen

A really good read, engaging and sap and happy and very down to earth. 

Rating;  8 out of 10

Un calcio in bocca fa miracoli - M. Presta

Niente, a me i vecchietti nei romanzi proprio non attirano. Carino, ma nulla di nuovo.

Rating:  5 out of 10

The colour purple - A. Walker
A magnificent portrait of the Southern US - a classic.
Rating:  9 out of 10

Storia della mia ansia - D. Bignardi
La mia autrice italiana preferita mi ha ammaliata ancora una volta. Bello bello.
Rating:  9 out of 10