Me and You

A #1 bestseller in Italy

"Immensely engaging . . . Both tender and emotionally arresting, Ammaniti's novel is unforgettable." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[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 Review

“[Ammaniti] writes with an unadorned style about moral predicaments of the young in small-town Italy . . . Lorenzo reminds an American reader of . . . other teenage misfits from Holden Caulfield to Colin in Alan Sillitoe’s Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner.” —The Arts Fuse

“Italian author Niccolo Ammaniti does a lot in 160 pages, including surprise, humor, and frighten you—sometimes simultaneously.” —Daily Candy

“Ammaniti’s prose is nimble, perceptive and economical . . . There’s a lot to love about this book—its reticent empathy, its delicate and pragmatic treatment of addiction, its remarkable use of restricted physical space.” —Full Stop

“Me and You takes a short time to read but offers a memorable experience in a mutual recognition of loneliness and grief.” —Curled Up with a Good Book

Praise for Niccolo Ammaniti

“Exuberant and audacious.” —Observer (UK)

“The new Italian word for talent is Ammaniti.” —The Times (UK)

“A fearsomely gifted writer.” —Independent (UK)

“A master storyteller.” —Guardian (UK)

“Europe’s hottest novelist.” —Kirkus Reviews

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.