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Remember the marginal lord stage of your middle school? Imagine, but in the context of increased political tensions and domestic terrorism in Italy in the late 1970s, you have mastered the secrets of a fascinating novel. However, the recipe can only end here. After reading "Time in My Hands", the taste in my mouth still has many shortcomings.

You don't necessarily need to have an in-depth knowledge of the Red Brigade in Italy in 1978 to understand this story; knowing that this is a very conspicuous and violent group will give you enough background and explanations in this book. Growing up in an era of political turmoil, this has had an impact on our 11-year-old narrator, a group of his friends who are fascinated by the idea of ​​brigade and adopt increasingly disturbing behaviors to imitate them. We only know that he is "Nimbus", which is one of the names used by the young trio to live away from their "civilian" lives.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of this novel is the contrast between the relatively ordinary life of an 11-year-old boy and the incredible violence he participated in-Vasta cleverly inserted strong emotions and emotions between regular observations of the plot. Cruel description. For example: You will hear that the sunset artfully depicts the horizon, but by the way, this is a boy trying to tear off a man's face. Is the music on the radio today boring? This is a great way to understand what normalized violence will look like when it is as expected as the weather.

In the novel, the narrator remembers a teacher who described him as "mythical": he made words, speaking of a person who could produce many words. Both Nimbus and Vasta's writing are accurate. Although it is not impossible to follow, I will warn the reader to keep the dictionary open-I say this is someone who has read a dictionary for fun. Even the most expressive nerd gene can't save you from descriptions like "occipital bone," not the skull as you know it. However, when the author’s word chooses to shine, it shines: “On TV, Rome is an animal. Viewed from above, the shape of houses and streets is a stone skeleton, a mineral animal. It contained the dead and produced They may have attracted them. In any case, only in Rome will anyone die." What a wonderful introduction: Blessed are the fans of "Book Thief"!

However, like any minimum word count article that ends at 11:59pm, these tangent descriptions can become a bit...a lot. Especially when it comes to strange sexual content. Especially when it comes to strange sex. Hey, this is just the beginning of the novel, so maybe it is a check-in measure to avoid suspicion? If so, it works-after a full page telling the narrator's love and being bitten by a mosquito, I almost replaced the book with this review. Yes, this is included in the strange sex content. Yes, this book still has some interesting content about politics and psychology-but you have to overcome peeping things to find it. Freud fans, are you happy?

The back cover is very poignant, saying it is a story about "how people can't communicate with each other again and again." The core of it is, but I worry that the final information of this book will be lost in the well-known sauce. This concern is most intense in Vasta's female role issue. Remember the lover in the mosquito incident? She is the main woman in the story, as well as Nimbus' mother String.

Right away, the fact that the two heroines are only the protagonist’s crush and mother is not ideal. Describe them as powerless and literal silence, respectively, and even worse. As the story progresses, my hopes for their agents in the narrative die as painfully as the victims of the brigade. Vasta proves throughout the book that he does not have enough time to imagine them as three-dimensional characters. Things happen to them; never out of their own will. Fans of "The Catcher in the Rye", cheer.

The slogan on the cover refers to this book as "Italy's most important book", which convinced me that the best things in that country are still pasta and MÃ¥neskin. If you have anything on hand, they are certainly worth your time.