The end of 2020 is approaching and, this time, we hope that it ends for real and that it becomes nothing more than a bad memory. It has been a difficult year, but since we are determined to see the silver lining in everything, one good thing is that many have had more time to dedicate to themselves and their hobbies (at least home-related ones). Far from friends and acquaintances, those who kept us company were mainly the characters of the dozens of books and hundreds of films that we read and saw.
Since it is not long before the end of this interminable year and our wish is that we will go back to our normal activities in the coming one, in the meantime we can keep plunging into reading. Here is three novels you absolutely need to read while you wait for January 1st.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
The international bestselling author of How to Stop Time comes back with an exciting new story, showing all his “empathy for the human condition”. Britain’s number one novel is about a library and a 19-year-old girl, Nora Seed, who could be any of us. Nora is unhappy and full of regrets. She thinks she has made too many bad choices and that she has disappointed everyone, herself in the first place. When she enters the library she realizes that its content is not the same as that of a normal library. Each book tells a different version of her story. What would have happened if she had chosen differently in that precise moment? What if she had made a different decision in that other occasion? Inside the library, Nora has the chance to see it with by herself and decide what according to her is the best life. But the more important question is: will she be able to understand what makes a life truly worth living?
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Il titolo italiano è Il sale della terra. A few days after its release, last January, it had already sold 50,000 copies, making it a candidate to become the book of the year in the United States. It deals with one of the hottest topics of recent years, after all: illegal immigration of Mexicans immigrants to the land of stars and stripes. That’s precisely for this reason that it raised a fuss around it, with Mexican writers blaming the author for the fact that an american did not have the right to write a story about Mexican people. In the book, Lydia Pérez runs a bookstore in Acapulco, where she leaves with her journalist husband and her eight-year-old son. All of a sudden her life is turned upside down when the boss of a Mexican drug cartel orders to murder her entire family. Lydia has no choice but to flee, seeking shelter in the United States, and crossing the US-Mexico border on the Beast, the cargo train on which migrants climb on, even if it means dying.
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
The author debuts novel was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize of 2020. The New York Times defined it “unforgettable”. It is an hymn to feminism and the fulfillment of dreams. Adunni is a 14-year-old Nigerian girl whose only dfesire is to have an education and study, in order to give herself the opportunity to have a voice and decide for her future. Trapped in a reality that wants hers obedient and quite, she is sold off by her father to a local man to be his third wife and give him an heir. Even if she manages to escape, the only job she will find will be as a servant for the wealthiest families. Despite everything she keeps dreaming and giving her opinion, until someone really listens to her.
