"Italian author and mathematician Giordano follows two scarred people whose lives intersect but can't seem to join in his cerebral yet touching debut. Alice and Mattia, both survivors of childhood traumas, are the odd ones out amid the adolescent masses in their high school. Mattia has never recovered from the loss of his sister, while Alice still suffers the effects of a skiing accident that damaged her physically and stunted her ability to trust. Now teenagers, Mattia, also addicted to self-injury, has withdrawn into a world of numbers and math, and Alice gains control through starving herself and photography. When they meet, they recognize something primal in each other, but timing and awkwardness keep their friendship on tenuous ground until, years later, their lives come together one last time. Giordano uses Mattia and Alice's trajectory to ask whether there are some people—the prime numbers among us—who are destined to be alone, or whether two primes can come together. The novel's bleak subject matter is rendered almost beautiful by Giordano's spare, intense focus on his two characters." (Mar.)
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Acquired via PaperBackSwap. (Unabridged on 6 CD's; read by Luke Daniels)

Despite good reviews (for the most part) & better-than-average writing, I can't really say this book left a lasting impression on me. I felt for the main characters (two "misfits"), but the whole novel felt like two parallel stories that never fully converged. I suppose many would say this is what makes the story profound, but I felt like something was really missing. After such a blasé plotline, I was at least expecting something fulfilling at the end, but even that was a disappointment.

Placing in BigJohnLefty's audio box.

Taking this from BigJohnLefty's First CD-Only AudioBookBox.

Thank you!

Huh. This book was written so beautifully. And it has one of my favorite things: teens who feel like solitary outcasts coming into their own and finding a kindred spirit. But this story still left me cold. It just stopped. I felt like I must have missed something, so I went back and listened to the last few tracks again. Then I confirmed that there are only 6 discs in the set. Huh. Weird. I didn't get some big epiphany. I didn't get a happy ending. I didn't even get some sort of understanding about what I was supposed to have even gotten out of this book.

I do like the characters, though both have some awful things happen to them at the beginning of the book that will probably haunt me for years now. I liked watching them grow. I liked watching them figure the world out. But there were some scenes I didn't feel like I truly understood the meaning of. Like some literary fiction, it made me feel stupid and lost. So I tried to focus less on the meaning and more on the characters. And just when I thought something finally would come out of the story regarding Mattia's twin sister, the story just ends. And I'm left with images like the two of them in wedding attire or Mattia covering a chalkboard in equations or that drive through town or the dam and river or that disgusting candy... and no idea what I'm supposed to make the images tell me.

I hope it's a matter of culture. Maybe in Italy they don't need or want the sort of ending tied up with a bow that I was expecting; maybe Italian readers need exactly what this book provides? Was this book originally written in Italian? Because, if so, I am AMAZED at the beauty of the words and sentences and descriptions. If not, I still think it's beautiful ;-)

But the beautiful way things are described and the characters I just wanted to hug were not enough to make me love this book. They were enough for me to want to keep reading, but now that the book is over, I feel empty and confused.

Sending this off in BigJohnLefty's other audio bookbox. I hope it finds a new reader who'll love it :-)

This sounds like it could go anywhere from good to bad. But I like the title and the theme and will give it a try.