Yet another book that I picked out of the long list of recent Premio Strega finalists. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it: it's quite well-written, it's current, it touches upon obviously important themes. And it's not engaging.
I perhaps thought so little of this book because its main character is struggling with her unfulfilled hopes in a way that I find quite trivial, or because her decision to help Almarina get on her feet feels like the superficial action of the most stereotypical do-gooder (in her defense, Parrella does talk about it with more than a hint of criticism).
At the end of the day, though, this book also highights a huge limitation that I have as a reader: I have to like a novel's main characters if I am to like the novel itself.
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