First time visiting BookBrowse? Get a free copy of our member's ezine today.

Book Summary and Reviews of Me and You by Niccolo Ammaniti

Me and You by Niccolo Ammaniti

Me and You

by Niccolo Ammaniti

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Jan 2012, 192 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

From internationally best-selling author Niccolò Ammaniti, comes a funny, tragic, gut-punch of a novel, charting how an unlikely alliance between two outsiders blows open one family's secrets.

Lorenzo Cumi is a fourteen-year-old misfit. To quell the anxiety of his concerned, socially conscious parents, he tells them he's been invited on an exclusive ski vacation with the popular kids. On the morning of the trip, Lorenzo demands that his mother drop him off before they arrive at the train station, insisting that his status will be compromised if he shows up accompanied by his mother. Reluctantly, she agrees, and as soon as she is safely out of the vicinity, he turns around and makes his way back to his neighborhood, to put his real plan in motion: for one blessed week, Lorenzo will retreat to a forgotten cellar in his family's apartment building, where he will live in perfect isolation, keeping the adult world at bay.

But when his estranged half-sister, Olivia, shows up in the cellar unexpectedly, his idyll is shattered, and the two become locked in a battle of wills - forced to confront the very demons they are each struggling to escape.

Paperback original

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Both tender and emotionally arresting, Ammaniti's novel is unforgettable." - Publishers Weekly

"[Niccolo Ammaniti] elegizes adolescence fiercely and sympathetically. His 14-year-old hero, Lorenzo Cumi, is a great character, part Young Werther, part Kurt Cobain... [Me and You] is scary, lovely and at last a heartbreaker." - Kirkus Reviews

"A [#1] best seller in Italy, and - here's the rub - Bernardo Bertolucci is directing the film version." - Library Journal

This information about Me and You was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Niccolo Ammaniti Author Biography

Niccolò Ammaniti was born in Rome in 1966. He is the author of three novels, as well as a collection of short stories. At thirty-four, he was the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Viareggio-Repaci prize for I'm Not Scared which has been translated into twenty languages and was made into a movie.

His books have inspired 5 films, and in 2014 he directed his first documentary, The Good Life.

Link to Niccolo Ammaniti's Website

Name Pronunciation
Niccolo Ammaniti: ni-CO-lo ama-NEE-tee

Other books by Niccolo Ammaniti at BookBrowse
  • I'm Not Scared jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Most
    by Jessica Anthony
    In November 1957, Kathleen and Virgil Beckett are living at Acropolis Place, an apartment complex in...
  • Book Jacket: Pink Slime
    Pink Slime
    by Fernanda Trias
    Unsurprisingly, the 21st century has been something of a boom time for environmental disaster in ...
  • Book Jacket: Becoming Earth
    Becoming Earth
    by Ferris Jabr
    The idea of Earth as one living, breathing organism is an age-old one, found in belief systems all ...
  • Book Jacket: Long Island Compromise
    Long Island Compromise
    by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
    Taffy Brodesser-Akner's second novel, Long Island Compromise, is centered around the Fletchers, a ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Story Collector
by Evie Woods
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop!

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    We'll Prescribe You a Cat
    by Syou Ishida

    Discover the bestselling Japanese novel celebrating the healing power of cats.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

K U with T J

and be entered to win..

Book Club Giveaway!
Win Before the Mango Ripens

Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian

Both epic and intimate, this debut announces a brilliant new talent for readers of Imbolo Mbue and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Enter

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.