Synopsis

Alice is almost forty, doesn't drink coffee, is afraid of seagulls, cures gastritis with bananas, and allows herself to have more questions about the world than answers. Understanding difficult things is her passion, and once she's understood them, she has the gift of explaining them to others. Technically a doctor, she's actually a science journalist, rigorous to the point of impossibly, loves happy hour, and has had the same friends since elementary school. Friends who consider her a resounding pain in the ass. Because lately Alice has been listening to them talk and no longer recognizes them. They used to be lucid and reasonable, now they believe in miracle potions, alternative therapies, the magical benefits of cucumbers, and the terrifying evils of generic multinationals of evil. But perhaps it's her stubborn eyes that want to deny the inexhaustible power of irrationality. Alice detests simple things, especially if they're also wrong. She's a science journalist, so she's used to questioning the world and then reporting on it. Even her friends, whom she entertains for hours with her bizarre stories about scientists. Suddenly, however, her friends have all become witches. That is, they're still the same as always, yet they've become incomprehensible. They believe in magic potions, astral planes, conspiracies, and unofficial medical remedies. Valeria, for example, hopes to turn the breech fetus she's carrying by doing somersaults in the water. She wants to avoid a C-section at all costs because she read online that it's not the best way to begin a relationship with her child. And to think that Alice's grandmother, back in her day, had a breech birth naturally, aided only by a bottle of brandy, and seventy years later, she's not at all sure it was a good way to start anything. And then there's Lucia, obsessed with healthy eating and organic products. And Arianna, an anesthesiologist, who discovers she's an advocate of homeopathy. And then there's the one who refuses to vaccinate her children, the one who follows the latest fad diet, the one who reads her future in horoscopes. Alice gets angry, tries to reason with her, and sometimes pontificates, because she too seems incapable of seeing a simple reality: that emotions can betray us. A brilliant and original debut novel about our superstitions, but above all, our fragilities, which has the courage to ironically tackle much-debated topics, captivating us with its author's irresistible voice.