“Sometimes I wish I was just a normal girl who can keep a dog without fear of dying.”
Every good reader knows that, from time to time, it is necessary to indulge in less demanding, flowing, but not banal, readings; stories that do not pretend to upset you, but lull you with tenderness out of everyday life. Eleonora Gaggero’s book was this for us.
It is a book for children, lively and generational, full of food for thought that, directly or indirectly, bring to the table important issues which, in many ways, not even adults know how to deal with. But let’s go in order.
Marta is an insecure 19-year-old, forced to cope with bigger problems than her young age, such as the loss of both parents and living with a rare disease for which there seems to be no cure. To offer her emotional shelter, and constant support, she thinks of her old friends, Federica and Jacopo, both homosexuals, with whom she will move to live together at the beginning of the story. We have specified the sexual preference of friends because their decision to have a child together, to create a real family unit, opens the door to indirect reflections on the subject and on how these are faced by the new generations.
It is enough to stop a few more moments to understand how some issues are actually easy to solve (perhaps because they are not problems?), if everything were seen with the eyes of purity. In fact, the important thing is not who or how a family is formed, but the love that parents are able to offer to the unborn child.
In addition to the decision made by friends, to enliven the life of Marta comes the news that her body is not responding properly to new treatments, and the doctor’s advice to live intensely every day. A return to the harsh reality that will be the decisive push to make her overcome the insecurities typical of every adolescent and to start daring in every aspect of life, even the love one.
The writing of the text is pleasant in its lightness, without frills and saved from the risk of excessive speculation as an end in itself, it has the merit of being direct and immediately getting to the point, in line with the young age of the author, and not ‘is more to ask.
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Gaggero Eleonora, At the best part, Fabbri, Milano, 2020
