Zoe Trope
Scusate Se Ho Quindici Anni

I FELL INTO THE TRAP...

It is now well-known that with the passing of years, new emerging authors appear, young and very young, who are presenting their stories, often edgy, other times light and flowing.

In Italy, there was Melissa P. with the not-so-great "Cento Colpi Di Spazzola Prima Di Andare A Dormire". From the United States comes this young girl of unknown identity (it seems she doesn't want to put her photos on the internet and her own name is nothing more than a stage name), who speaks her mind without holding back... quite a lot, in fact.

And if the Italian translation of the successful title "Please Don't Kill The Freshman" becomes a terrible "Scusate Se Ho Quindici Anni", still on the back cover the book is presented as an essential piece, as if it were a sort of cry from the new generation.

That misleading summary shows a girl who describes her friends with extroverted and extreme terms, who self-defines as "Pomosexual" (a postmodern homosexual, though unconsciously she falls for several boys in the book).

It seems to be the novel of a girl between intellectualism, anarchy, and art. When I caught a glimpse of it, I was intrigued, very intrigued... and I ended up buying it.

First lines. Already I’m struggling, the writing idolized by many American teenagers and several critics, defined as "innovative and poetically perverse" is nothing more than a jumble of words, oxymorons, and pretty poetic scenes tossed in as if they were snowballs.

Zoe Trope literally couldn’t care less about the plot, creating out of thin air a sort of empty diary, without the slightest narrative, focusing on form, on the lexicon, which surprises, fascinates, but leaves nothing behind.

Sentences like "His presence resembles my chapped lips from the cream" demonstrate an almost retro-romantic soul, but which at the same time wants and demands to be sarcastic. And so it continues through empty pages: pages where the girl does nothing but complain, about her parents, her brother, the publishers, and her friends.

Perhaps she is in love with her best Asian and gay friend, it’s unclear. It's unclear: absolute uncertainty. The more the pages turn, the more doubts arise. And if the poetic peak is reached when the sweet lass watches the disaster of the twin towers with her little eyes, immediately afterward it returns to absolute emptiness.

Lines that tell nothing, that are so pretentious and vain that they give you chills. A novel that wants to be captivating, wants to seem original, avoiding, almost deliberately, the slightest hint of a non-existent story.

The ideas are lacking. They really are.

And it's a shame because some ideas are almost brilliant... Zoe can write, there’s no doubt... she has a good grasp of lexicon, grammar, and language, but linguistic skills alone are not enough to make a good book. Rescheduled for September.

"Everyone tells me I am sour like a lemon but one day I’ll be an apple. I’ll learn to be sweet"