All That Is Left of Life
Packed with difficult subject matter ... Recchia treats all this not as tawdry fodder, but as the painful lived experience of her characters, which she excavates with an honesty and precision that counter the operatic nature of her material ... The novel also takes readers on a seductive tour of Rome and its environs ... Antonella Lettieri’s translation is fluid and captivating ... At times, the pieces of the murder mystery fit together too easily. Names are named and confessions blurted a bit conveniently ... I mostly breezed past these moments, happy to be carried along by the novel’s pleasurable cascade of interlocking events ... Some readers’ eyes may get teary, others may roll a little; but I suspect all will be glued to these riveting pages from start to finish.
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From the first page, readers will be immersed in this suspenseful tale of family, love, and the worst violence a parent can imagine. Recchia skillfully depicts the emotions and feelings of her characters, capturing their feelings in a raw, honest way ... This is an international bestselling debut novel of a vibrant young beauty snatched from life with remarkable sensitivity and incredibly believable characters. Lettieri’s translation is exquisite. Reading this spellbinding novel feels like a contest of how quickly one can turn the pages.
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Set in 1980s Rome, Recchia’s irresistible English-language debut follows a family’s struggle to rebuild after a teenage girl’s murder ... Recchia depicts with devastating astuteness how grief hollows out Betta’s family and whittles away at Miriam, and her captivating storytelling transcends the plot’s well-worn trope of a young man with a checkered past who intuits exactly what a woman needs. Cinematic in pacing and scope, this is nearly impossible to put down.
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