This could've been a lovely coming of age story - I mean, it WAS a lovely coming of age story, technically, if you just look at the series of events - only I found the writing to be very strange. Sixteen-year-old Ginia longs for adventure in the midst of a long Italian summer in the 1930s, and so she meets Amelia, an artist's model.

A premise right up my alley, but alas! Maybe it was a translation thing, but it felt very jumbled and difficult to follow, which unfortunately made it a lot less enjoyeable. I didn't care for neither the protagonist nor any of the other characters, and couldn't for the life of me understand anyone's attachment to anyone else, as we didn't really get to see many fleshed out, interesting conversations (in my opinion at least). From what I've understood this writer is pretty loved, and I'm not against reading him again, so maybe it was simply a lost in translation thing? But at the same time, a book this short shouldn't be this messy and lowkey boring.

Things I DID like: The prospect of being a young woman in the 30s who poses as a model for a living. I'm sure that was very frowned upon (or?), so I think it was a fascinating choice, which paired up well with the protagonist's feelings toward it as a character study. I also liked her relationship with Amelia, even though I didn't always understand it. I think it's good to show complex friendships between girls and women. And maybe that was the point of the book all along?