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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful story of love and loneliness,
This review is from: Solitude of Prime Numbers (Paperback)
I picked up this book at the local bookstore and from the first page I was captured by the writer's narrative. It was sometimes shocking, sad, uneasy, but still an amazingly beautiful story. The two main characters suffered some traumatic episodes in their childhood and it was sad to see how these experiences influenced the decisions they made in their adult lives. The story made me think about how complex human beings are and that you could never possibly understand what's going on in someone else's mind and reasons behind their actions. You could see how their actions would cause frustration to others, but at the same time you would sympathize and wish they could see beyond their own pain.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sad Yet Beautiful...,
By
This review is from: Solitude of Prime Numbers (Paperback)
The story centers around three main characters: Alice, Michela, and Mattia. Alice lives with her parents and has always defied them in some way. When she was younger she hated attending ski school and at age fifteen she wanted a tattoo but her father told her "no", that when she turned eighteen and was paying her own way, she could then get a tattoo.Michela and Mattia are twins but Michela suffers from mental problems and is quite behind developmentally. One day Mattia and Michela are invited to a birthday party but Mattia is too embarrassed to take his sister with him so instead, he drops her off at the park and tells her not to move that he'd be back in half an hour to pick her up. When Mattia returns, Michela is gone! As Mattia and Alice grow they become friends but Pietro Balossino, Mattia's father, is tired of trying to infiltrate his son's strange and obscure world. He had spent many nights searching the house for sharp objects after seeing the scars on Mattia's arms. Pietro thought so much about one day finding his son face down on a blood soaked pillow that he is already thinking of his son as non-existant. This is a coming-of-age story, a love story, a story of loneliness with a touch of melancholy and a depiction of damaged soul mates whose hearts are kindred spirits. This debut novel was a joy to read.
5.0 out of 5 stars
`A prime number is a lonely thing.',
By J. Cameron-Smith "Expect the Unexpected" (ACT, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Solitude of Prime Numbers (Paperback)
This story, which covers the years from 1983 to 2007, is about two lonely children with traumatic incidents in their past who grow into lonely, but linked adulthood. Alice Della Rocca is labelled a cripple as a consequence of a limp incurred during a skiing accident in childhood which broke her leg. Mattia Balossino is a twin whose twin sister Michela is developmentally disabled: `his brain seemed to be a perfect machine, in the same mysterious way that his sister's was so defective.' The twins are placed in the same class at school, where Mattia is constantly trying to protect Michela from the taunting and teasing of the other students. Mattia's parents force him to take Michela with him wherever he goes until one day on their way to a birthday party to which they have been invited; Mattia abandons Michela in a park. Michela is never seen again.Mattia meets Alice at high school. Alice is attracted to Mattia, and tries to befriend him. `They had formed a defective and asymmetrical friendship made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of the school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation.' Mattia and Alice's teenage years are painful and awkward. Both have adopted self-harming behaviours, neither has another person to whom they are close. Alice does attempt to make friends with Viola and her group, and is finally cruelly rejected. Mattia sees himself and Alice as `twin primes', like 11 and 13, or 17 and 19. `close but not close enough to really touch each other - lonely individuals forever linked but separated.' Their lives after high school diverge. Mattia goes to university, and then takes up a research position. Their lives become more complicated as they grow older. Alice marries and is then divorced. Mattia and Alice reconnect at times, but seem fated to get no closer to each other or to anyone else. Their friendship is neither romantic, nor detached. In many ways, this is a harrowing story about two quite exceptional individuals who do not usually relate to others and are often quite unlikeable. And yet at times there are aspects of more usual teenaged angst which makes you wonder their solitariness could have been overcome - perhaps with different parenting and slightly different circumstances, and perhaps if each was smarter and less intelligent. This is an accomplished first novel, which left me thinking about the story and its possible meanings long after I'd finished reading it. Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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