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la_noia23's review against another edition
4.0
This book really captures the feeling of treason. The feeling of being legt alone amd working it out on your own, with your own methods. The atmosphere is so well contoured. You can feel where the character is positioned in any scene and how she reacts to all the interactions. A small and sweet read, I could call it. Something that will not tire you nor your brain, but will give it a bittersweet feeling of upcoming.
letiziadinca's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
spenkevich's review against another edition
5.0
‘I was the arminuta, the one who was returned.’
I have just closed the final pages of A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio and let me tell you, I am feeling all the feelings. It is the story of a young girl who, for reasons unknown to her, is suddenly thrust out of her life in the city and returned to live with a rural family she discovers are actually her real parents. Set in 1975, the narrator reflects back 20 years later on her life with this family where slaps outweigh tenderness, life is harsh and the food is sparse, yet the bonds that form between her and her younger sister, Adriana, might be enough to make it all worthwhile. Winner of the Premio Campiello prize in Italy when it was published in 2017, here we can enjoy Di Pietrantonio’s direct and unadorned yet deeply affecting prose gorgeously translated into English by [a:Ann Goldstein|183680|Ann Goldstein|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (best known for her work with [a:Elena Ferrante|44085|Elena Ferrante|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1635020942p2/44085.jpg]). A Girl Returned is a heartbreakingly beautiful examination of kinship and class where sisterhood becomes a lifeline amidst betrayals and tragedies that culminate to an ending so emotionally charged it will leave you breathless.
‘I was too young, and propelled by the current, to see the river I’d been thrown into.’
Told in retrospect, this story chronicles the crushing physical and emotional abandonment felt by the narrator over a year and a half of her life. The set-up dumps her from the family that raised her as an only child to her birth parents, a working-class household with more children than they can readily feed. The circumstances are unknown to her at the time, with the big reveal of reasoning being an emotional gut-punch near the novel's conclusion, and the loving mother she has always known is replaced by her real mother with whom she has an icy relationship. There is a path to mutual respect and understanding, but it is fraught with disdain not helped by their completely different interactions with society. The narrator has been used to city life and is a huge academic success whereas her mother is not formally educated and is no stranger to hard labor and what it means to ‘earn what you eat.’ The narrator frequently refers to her aunt who raised her as ‘my mother’, keeping her birth mother at a distance both emotionally and linguistically by referring to her as ‘the mother.’
There is a social class divide that is thoroughly examined in the novel. The narrator is embarrassed that her family lacks the manners of higher class society, on several instances pointing out that her father or sister makes social faux pas by using the informal “you”, and recoils at their rural dialect. She wins government grants for academics and is frequently used as an example by her teacher to the other students to shame them for their lack of enthusiasm and success in academics. Yet when her younger sister can deliver a cutting insult to drive away bullies, it is the sister who says ‘If you want to stay, you’d better learn the right verbs for around here, too.’ There is also a lot of social class resentment in her family, with the birth mother making remarks about her cousin and ‘the comfortable life she has.’ The oldest son, Vincenzo, often runs off with the Romani, something seen as a mark of shame to his parents who frequently beat him for it, showing how even the lower classes will punch down at those beneath them the same way they resent the upper class for doing to them.
‘In time I lost that confused idea of normality, too, and today I really don’t know what place a mother is.’
As the narrator observes the growing silence between her and the family that raised her as well as the disconnect between her and her birth mother, she begins to feel she is ‘an orphan of two living mothers,’ and resents that, when she is to be sent to the city for school, everything is organized without her input in ‘the tomorrow that the two mothers had planned for me in my absence.’ This becomes a huge emotional burden, one that affects her own feelings of self-worth and emotional attachment in this world. She feels empty, abandoned, and alone without any say in her own life.
Her attachment issues are something already hindered even before she was given back when her favorite cousin Lidia, who had lived with them and acted as a sister, leaves and, after a long period of silence, shows up with her own child. The narrator sees how relations are transitory and reflects upon this while struggling to make connections with the family she has never known. The notion of transitory relationships has always been a theme that hits hard for me, having uprooted several times in life. I’ve never been good at keeping in touch but I love my friends all the same and I hope they know.
The heart of the story, and what truly makes this an overwhelmingly beautiful read, is the relationship that forms between her and her 10 year old sister, Adriana, a precocious child with a big heart and a ‘natural and bold unselfconsciousness.’ Adriana cares for her the way an older sister would, always checking to see if she is okay and standing up even to her parents on the narrator's behalf. Adriana is what makes the situation bearable, yet with the narrator’s attachment issues she finds she betrays her sister when breaking the promise to never be separated from her, passing on her own feelings of abandonment to the one she holds most dear. Her infant brother, Giuseppe, also becomes a close tie as the narrator cares for him in his complete inability to care for himself. There is a touching thread through the novel of caring for those who need it, and the examinations of kinship are a radiant message that truly steals the reader’s heart as she demonstrates lives intertwined beyond mere companionship but functioning to ensure the flourishing and well-being of one another.
This is contrasted, however, with Vincenzo who initially appears to be supportive and kind but not without an ulterior motive. He has an incestous lust for the narrator, and there are a few scenes where she is confused between regarding a situation as passion or sexual assault from her own brother. It is an early lesson that the kindness of men may have something darker behind it, yet Di Pietrantonio does well by making Vincenzo a very dynamic character that it is hard to not feel empathetic for at the same time. He has grown up in a difficult situation and has very few avenues available for him. What results is both tragic and also a sigh of relief as the narrator has likely escaped further abuse that she is uncertain how to process.
‘I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart I don’t know even now.’
I can’t help but feel deeply moved and grateful for A Girl Returned, which comes at you so directly while encompassing your whole heart. It was interesting to read this not far removed from having read [a:Jeanette Winterson|9399|Jeanette Winterson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1561070665p2/9399.jpg]’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, a memoir dealing with difficult relationships between a mother that raised her and a birth mother, and I am so glad to have stumbled upon Luce’s extraordinary review that inspired me to immediately pick this up (definitely a good person to follow, I’ve never been led astray). The book is short, but lasting and reads at a fast pace that will grip you the whole way through. But mostly, A Girl Returned is painfully beautiful and does such an excellent job of exploring family ties, the importance and power of sisterhood, as well as the divisions instilled by social classes and it is one that will linger in my heart for a long time. The conclusion is simply stunning and delivers so much heart in such a succinct manner.
5/5
‘My sister. Like an improbable flower, growing in a clump of earth stuck in the rock. From her I learned resistance. We look less like each other now, but we find the same meaning in this being thrown into the world. In our alliance we survived.’
I have just closed the final pages of A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio and let me tell you, I am feeling all the feelings. It is the story of a young girl who, for reasons unknown to her, is suddenly thrust out of her life in the city and returned to live with a rural family she discovers are actually her real parents. Set in 1975, the narrator reflects back 20 years later on her life with this family where slaps outweigh tenderness, life is harsh and the food is sparse, yet the bonds that form between her and her younger sister, Adriana, might be enough to make it all worthwhile. Winner of the Premio Campiello prize in Italy when it was published in 2017, here we can enjoy Di Pietrantonio’s direct and unadorned yet deeply affecting prose gorgeously translated into English by [a:Ann Goldstein|183680|Ann Goldstein|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (best known for her work with [a:Elena Ferrante|44085|Elena Ferrante|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1635020942p2/44085.jpg]). A Girl Returned is a heartbreakingly beautiful examination of kinship and class where sisterhood becomes a lifeline amidst betrayals and tragedies that culminate to an ending so emotionally charged it will leave you breathless.
‘I was too young, and propelled by the current, to see the river I’d been thrown into.’
Told in retrospect, this story chronicles the crushing physical and emotional abandonment felt by the narrator over a year and a half of her life. The set-up dumps her from the family that raised her as an only child to her birth parents, a working-class household with more children than they can readily feed. The circumstances are unknown to her at the time, with the big reveal of reasoning being an emotional gut-punch near the novel's conclusion, and the loving mother she has always known is replaced by her real mother with whom she has an icy relationship. There is a path to mutual respect and understanding, but it is fraught with disdain not helped by their completely different interactions with society. The narrator has been used to city life and is a huge academic success whereas her mother is not formally educated and is no stranger to hard labor and what it means to ‘earn what you eat.’ The narrator frequently refers to her aunt who raised her as ‘my mother’, keeping her birth mother at a distance both emotionally and linguistically by referring to her as ‘the mother.’
There is a social class divide that is thoroughly examined in the novel. The narrator is embarrassed that her family lacks the manners of higher class society, on several instances pointing out that her father or sister makes social faux pas by using the informal “you”, and recoils at their rural dialect. She wins government grants for academics and is frequently used as an example by her teacher to the other students to shame them for their lack of enthusiasm and success in academics. Yet when her younger sister can deliver a cutting insult to drive away bullies, it is the sister who says ‘If you want to stay, you’d better learn the right verbs for around here, too.’ There is also a lot of social class resentment in her family, with the birth mother making remarks about her cousin and ‘the comfortable life she has.’ The oldest son, Vincenzo, often runs off with the Romani, something seen as a mark of shame to his parents who frequently beat him for it, showing how even the lower classes will punch down at those beneath them the same way they resent the upper class for doing to them.
‘In time I lost that confused idea of normality, too, and today I really don’t know what place a mother is.’
As the narrator observes the growing silence between her and the family that raised her as well as the disconnect between her and her birth mother, she begins to feel she is ‘an orphan of two living mothers,’ and resents that, when she is to be sent to the city for school, everything is organized without her input in ‘the tomorrow that the two mothers had planned for me in my absence.’ This becomes a huge emotional burden, one that affects her own feelings of self-worth and emotional attachment in this world. She feels empty, abandoned, and alone without any say in her own life.
‘It’s absent from my life the way good health, shelter, certainty can be absent. It’s an enduring emptiness, which I know but can’t get past. My head whirls if I look inside it. A desolate landscape that keeps you from sleeping at night and constructs nightmares in the little sleep it allows. The only mother I never lost is the one of my fears.’
Her attachment issues are something already hindered even before she was given back when her favorite cousin Lidia, who had lived with them and acted as a sister, leaves and, after a long period of silence, shows up with her own child. The narrator sees how relations are transitory and reflects upon this while struggling to make connections with the family she has never known. The notion of transitory relationships has always been a theme that hits hard for me, having uprooted several times in life. I’ve never been good at keeping in touch but I love my friends all the same and I hope they know.
The heart of the story, and what truly makes this an overwhelmingly beautiful read, is the relationship that forms between her and her 10 year old sister, Adriana, a precocious child with a big heart and a ‘natural and bold unselfconsciousness.’ Adriana cares for her the way an older sister would, always checking to see if she is okay and standing up even to her parents on the narrator's behalf. Adriana is what makes the situation bearable, yet with the narrator’s attachment issues she finds she betrays her sister when breaking the promise to never be separated from her, passing on her own feelings of abandonment to the one she holds most dear. Her infant brother, Giuseppe, also becomes a close tie as the narrator cares for him in his complete inability to care for himself. There is a touching thread through the novel of caring for those who need it, and the examinations of kinship are a radiant message that truly steals the reader’s heart as she demonstrates lives intertwined beyond mere companionship but functioning to ensure the flourishing and well-being of one another.
This is contrasted, however, with Vincenzo who initially appears to be supportive and kind but not without an ulterior motive. He has an incestous lust for the narrator, and there are a few scenes where she is confused between regarding a situation as passion or sexual assault from her own brother. It is an early lesson that the kindness of men may have something darker behind it, yet Di Pietrantonio does well by making Vincenzo a very dynamic character that it is hard to not feel empathetic for at the same time. He has grown up in a difficult situation and has very few avenues available for him. What results is both tragic and also a sigh of relief as the narrator has likely escaped further abuse that she is uncertain how to process.
‘I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart I don’t know even now.’
I can’t help but feel deeply moved and grateful for A Girl Returned, which comes at you so directly while encompassing your whole heart. It was interesting to read this not far removed from having read [a:Jeanette Winterson|9399|Jeanette Winterson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1561070665p2/9399.jpg]’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, a memoir dealing with difficult relationships between a mother that raised her and a birth mother, and I am so glad to have stumbled upon Luce’s extraordinary review that inspired me to immediately pick this up (definitely a good person to follow, I’ve never been led astray). The book is short, but lasting and reads at a fast pace that will grip you the whole way through. But mostly, A Girl Returned is painfully beautiful and does such an excellent job of exploring family ties, the importance and power of sisterhood, as well as the divisions instilled by social classes and it is one that will linger in my heart for a long time. The conclusion is simply stunning and delivers so much heart in such a succinct manner.
5/5
‘My sister. Like an improbable flower, growing in a clump of earth stuck in the rock. From her I learned resistance. We look less like each other now, but we find the same meaning in this being thrown into the world. In our alliance we survived.’
danygalletas's review against another edition
4.0
Una historia que te enseña a buscar tu lugar en el mundo. La niña al vivir con sus verdaderos padres después de haber Sido criada por su tía se da cuenta que realmente al lugar que pertenece es con su familia de sangre aunque no sea la familia perfecta se da cuenta que la que si creía perfecta tampoco lo es. El punto es encontrar tu lugar cuando parece que no perteneces a ningún lado.
cmccotter's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
sarahah27's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mwitte's review against another edition
medium-paced
4.0
Really well written but some plot holes/didn’t love the ending
alx7p's review against another edition
4.0
Molto bello. Ma non è la Ferrante. Sono molti i rimandi alle storie di Elena Greco, ma quella della Ferrante comunque rimane una trama più articolata e matura.