Synopsis

Some stories are universal, others are inexorably tied to their time. This story begins in the late 1980s, before the Internet and information was transmitted only through gossip or books. When, to understand how sexuality worked, one relied on a friend who claimed to be more expert, or a pornographic magazine. Serena and Vittoria are inseparable, having shared everything since childhood: Greek translations and nightclubs, scooter escapes from the prestigious high school in Rome's Trieste neighborhood, and the thrills of freedom experienced during long-awaited study trips to London. For both, their mutual friendship is salvation and support from the sense of inadequacy in a suffocating society. Vittoria appears the more confident and reactive, Serena the more analytical and cerebral. One summer, Paolo appears in Vittoria's life, they fall in love, but it is Serena who has the difficult task of uncovering the truth about him, in a conflict between victims and executioners that will undermine every certainty. Between complicity, betrayal, twists and trauma, A te vicino così dolce is a tender and compelling novel, but also painful and full of courage, about how willing we are to be deceived by love.