Book 71: I'm Not Scared

I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti

I'm still playing catch up with all the books I've read in the last few months and haven't blogged about yet. I'm blogging completely out of order at this point - Her Fearful Symmetry as is probably obvious by my review's length and detail was a rather recent read, while this next one is from May? June? I don't even remember. I picked it up based on a review at Bibliolatry.

The novel takes place in the summer of 1978 in a poor small Italian community in Tuscany (there are five houses), and is narrated by the adult self of Michele Amitrano. While he and his friends are out one day, Michele makes a discovery during a dare but decides not to share it with any of his friends. Both intrigued and excited to have a secret of his own, he soon realizes that it much more far reaching than he realized and that almost everyone is involved.

While no one in the village was financially well-off, Michele's family definitely seemed to be among the poorest. His father actually works outside the city, and seems to be rather down on his luck though his children adore him when he comes to visit. Ammaniti did a good job of getting into the mind of a young child while using the fact that the child's adult self was narrating to provide further insight. Also given the brevity of the novel, the characters and the area itself were described and developed in great detail.