Nicola DeRobertis-Theye

The review in the New York Times sounded promising: a young woman is intrigued by a long-distance customer of the bookstore where she works, who orders long lists of esoteric books to be shipped to him in Italy. It occurs to her (her life doesn't seem to have much active direction) to try to find him when she's doing her solo world tour (nice to have the leisure and money to just fly around the globe when you're bored and discontented). She resists engagement with her family, except if they might be useful. She's worried she might become schizophrenic as her own mother did when exactly her age. That's pretty much it. It's a whole lot of pretentious brooding and navel-gazing, all the "coming of age," "who am I really?" stuff I found tedious when I was twenty-five, occasionally punctuated by equally dull and mechanical sex. I was mainly interested in the old Italian customer, who proves elusive, leaving behind a notebook written in Arabic crammed with maps and notes, which the narrator (we eventually learn her name is Gabriele) obtains under false pretenses. Gabriele sits around while her cousin's friends help translate the contents, and she isn't even interested in that, daydreaming and doodling while the friends seriously parse out the text. Halfway through the not-very-long book, the jaded, weary tone just lost me. Gabriele herself admits she was most interested in meeting Signore Vietri, maybe talking about the books he ordered, and when he isn't immediately producible, slumps back into her ennui. So did I. I don't know what happens after that, but I did try, and failed to care.… (meer)