Mariapia Veladiano - A Life Apart

This is an elegant and quite engaging short first novel about a physically 'tainted' young girl who is attempting to come to terms with her apparently extreme ugliness and the secret history behind her mother's chronic depression. Some of this book is very well-written and while overall ultimately it feels a little slight, it has some beautifully observed moments that reminded me of incidents related to people with mental illness in my own life that rang absolutely true. A promising debut and a recipient of many awards in its native Italy that reads well in translation I enjoyed this, if not immensely, then at least a fair amount.

Here is a review from The Irish Times that led me to the work and here is a link to the publishing house MacLehose press