Belladonna
Our Italian Year
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A hypnotizing coming-of-age novel set in 1950s Italy that stares into the heart of longing and at the friendships that have the power to save and destroy us.
"I was utterly captivated, from first page to last." --Anton DiSclafani, New York Times bestselling author of The After Party
Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes of their Connecticut Catholic school, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella.
In 1957, when the girls graduate, they land coveted spots at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Pentila in northern Italy, a prestigious art history school on the grounds of a silent convent. There, free of her claustrophobic home and the town that will always see her and her Egyptian mother as outsiders, Bridget discovers she can reinvent herself as anyone she desires... perhaps even someone Isabella could desire in return.
But as that glittering year goes on, Bridget begins to suspect Isabella is keeping a secret from her, one that will change the course of their lives forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in the late 1950s, Salam's arresting U.S. debut centers on the relationship between dazzling, wealthy Isabella Crowley and smart yet socially inept Bridget Ryan. They meet as juniors in a Connecticut Catholic high school, where Isabella, a newcomer, is caught playing a game called Dead Nun. Bridget is infatuated with Isabella, and falsely claims she put Isabella up to it, finding favor as a result. The other girls then pretend to overlook Bridget's Egyptian, "foreign" mother and perpetually ill sister, Rhona. After Bridget and Isabella are accepted into an exchange program at an Italian academy for their senior year, Bridget's overwhelming desire to have Isabella to herself momentarily comes true, yet Isabella holds the power even after Bridget kisses her ("a ribbon spun through my body and I stiffened, daring myself not to breathe and give away the rippling feeling"). Bridget returns home shortly after arriving in Italy, though, to be with Rhona, who suffered a heart attack, and the Ryan family is horrified at the doctor's request to study Rhona's "mixed heritage."After Rhona is discharged and Bridget returns to Italy, Bridget disapproves of Isabella's new friendship with a young nun, with whom she spitefully shares compromising information about Isabella. The tender, exquisite prose brilliantly captures the feelings and fault lines in the girls' friendship. This is a discerning look at secret infatuation and racial prejudice. Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated this is the author's first book. It is in fact the author's first book to be published in America.
