Carmela's Books

As a major bestseller and BookTok megahit, it’s no surprise that V.E. Schwab's groundbreaking book, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue , can be found in translation in a variety of Italian bookstores as La vita invisibile di Addie LaRue.  France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever―and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. Acquired by Oscar fantastica, a Mondadori imprint dedicated primarily to sci-fi/fantasy among other speculative works, La vita invisibile di Addie LaRue was translated by Marina Calvaresi for Italian publication. The original English edition ...

An uplifting story where Studio Ghibli meets Hallmark, The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune both warms and welcomes its readers with its poignant attention to detail and supercharged comedic timing. Rounded off with wonderful representation and an adorable ensemble cast, this book is perfect for anyone wanting to feel that there’s still space for them somewhere.  Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light. I’m not often a fan of romance stories that involve children, but TJ Klune managed to make this an exception. Ample time is spent fleshing out each and every one of the children, their personalities, fears, and needs, making them feel like true chara...

This thrilling end to Chloe Gong’s explosively popular duology does not disappoint. Our Violent Ends serves as both tribute and counter-culture to its source material, giving us all the tragedy but none of the predictability from all the retellings that came before it.  The year is 1927, and Shanghai teeters on the edge of revolution. After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on a mission. One wrong move, and her cousin will step in to usurp her place as the Scarlet Gang’s heir. The only way to save the boy she loves from the wrath of the Scarlets is to have him want her dead for murdering his best friend in cold blood. If Juliette were actually guilty of the crime Roma believes she committed, his rejection might sting less. Roma is still reeling from Marshall’s death, and his cousin Benedikt will barely speak to him. Roma knows it’s his fault for letting the ruthless Juliette back into his life, and he’s determined to...

First, there was Thisbe and Pyramus, then Romeo and Juliet , then West Side Story. Now there is These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong, the one book that will make you realize just why the art of recrafting age-old stories is still relevant today, when it seems that every possible version of a work has been told. But believe me—it hasn’t. The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery. A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang—a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love…and first betrayal. But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the peopl...

Casey McQuiston's Red, White, & Royal Blue is staple in both the queer and romcom book communities. It's highly visible on BookTok and Bookstagram, and should you peer at any Gen Z or Millennial's bookshelf for more than five seconds you'll immediately spot the iconic red spine. This is truly a special novel, loud and proud in its optimism and radical queer joy, which is why I personally found it so thrilling to see Rosso, bianco, & sangue blu available in various Italian bookstores. When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius―his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a ...

In a world bursting at the seams with expectations for the youth, from college to career to the ever-changing, ever-unattainable idea of “success,” the hardest thing to do is listen to yourself. Alice Oseman's Radio Silence meticulously presents these ins-and-outs of teenage life and anxieties, gifting us all with a story that, at its core, celebrates and prioritizes a quest for happiness. Frances Janvier spends most of her time studying. Everyone knows Aled Last as that quiet boy who gets straight As. You probably think that they are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and she is a girl. They don’t. They make a podcast. In a world determined to shut them up, knock them down, and set them on a cookie cutter life path, Frances and Aled struggle to find their voices over the course of one life-changing year. Will they have the courage to show everyone who they really are? Or will they be met with radio silence? Alice Oseman was born in 1994 in Kent, England. She co...

Il ladro di fulmini was a going away gift from my mom for study abroad. I consider it pretty high up there with my other most prized possessions: my absolutely destroyed copies of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, complete with original covers, deformed spines, and a whole lot of water damage. I've definitely treated this version much more kindly.  If you couldn't already tell, Rick Riordan’s work has had a big impact on me. I can say without a single doubt that it was his books that got me into avidly reading. I started with them in the first grade and devoured them as every series came out, all the way through high school. I owe my choice of major and (future, fingers crossed) profession to him. That being understood, The Lightning Thief is really important to me. So, when I opened Il ladro di fulmini and saw “Non ho scelto io di essere un mezzosangue,” I did what every respectable publishing and Italian double major does. I slammed it closed and I screamed. To explain the ab...

I first spotted this absolute gem in Lecce, which was honestly ironic, because I’d downloaded the English audiobook to listen to on the train down to Puglia. I visited two bookstores in Lecce, Mondadori (yes, it’s also a bookstore as well as a publishing group) and La Feltrinelli. Both had L’ultima notte della nostra vita displayed right when you walked in, which, of course, made me immediately need to dissect every piece of it. Luckily, my roommate is super patient and just wandered off to look at other books that interested her.  When I first saw the cover, I was surprised to see the title changed so drastically. Going from “they both die at the end” to “the last night of our life” is, well, at first it made little sense. Walking back from Mondadori, however, had both me and my roommate thinking. I told her about the Italian title and showed her photos, and we worked together to make a rough translation for the original title, which was "tutti e due muoiono alla fine.” We imm...

I have seen a handful of Queer books, or books involving Queer characters, at various stores in Italy, but seeing Heartstopper at La Feltrinelli in Lecce still managed to surprise me somewhat. This was the first store I’d seen in Italy to specifically have an LGBTQ section, and even from across the room I was able to spot the various pride flags and the covers of Heartstopper’s first and fourth volumes, visibly turned out so you could see them. Maybe it’s because I’ve been re-reading all four volumes in preparation for the April 22nd Netflix series release, or maybe it’s because Alice Oseman and their works always manage to catch my eye no matter the situation, but, regardless, I scrambled over there real fast .  You can see the LGBTQ section behind me To my delight, they were indeed Italian translations of the books. The title wasn’t changed—though that honestly makes sense seeing as I can’t think of many easy translations of the word "heartstopper." “Heartstrings” is ...

  Aiden Thomas’ Cemetery Boys, regardless of edition or language, is a powerfully evocative book, perfectly snaring its readers amongst a carefully woven web of teenage love, witty humor, and the intense need to be seen that all queer youth have at one point felt.  A coming of age story at its heart, the book — which keeps its English title in its Italian edition—follows teenage Yadriel, a trans boy determined to prove himself to his Latinx community, all of whom are gifted with the ability to see spirits. When his cousin suddenly dies, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. However, the ghost he summons is not his cousin. It's Julian Diaz, the resident bad boy of his high school, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. Aiden Thomas is a New York Times Bestselling author with an MFA in Crea...

  A good start for those interested in mythology retellings, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne does what most myth retellings fail to do: fill in the gaps. Rather than take chapters to follow the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, a highly referenced classic, Saint instead pours life into the moments the original story never addressed. Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid’s stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice. When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne’s decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind? Due to a lifelong ...