The novel begins with the traumatic incidents which initiated the solitary lives of Alice and Mattia. As a little girl in ski school, Alice was in a skiing accident which had me on the edge of my seat and left one of Alice’s legs severely disfigured. Mattia was born a twin and while it eventually becomes apparent he had an aptitude for math, his sister was born developmentally damaged. When he is seven years old, Mattia makes a decision out of frustration and anger which results in the boy carrying the burden of guilt for the rest of his life. These children are so damaged by these early events that you’re unsure how they can keep going. When Alice and Mattia meet as high school teens, they somehow recognize their damaged selves in each other and eventually form a friendship which lasts for years. Math defines Mattia’s relationship with the world and he views Alice and himself as prime numbers.

“Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and by themselves. They stand in their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed in between two others, like all other numbers, but a step further on than the rest. They are suspicious and solitary, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they’d been trapped like pearls strung on a necklace. At other times he suspected that they too would rather have been like all the others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they weren’t capable of it.”

Coming-of-age stories aren’t necessarily my favorite genre but Giordano’s unique characters and pure writing style won me over from the first page. Though Alice and Mattia are difficult characters to empathize with, they are memorable and the story of their lives is mesmerizing. Finally, add in a perfect ending when I couldn’t imagine even an imperfect one, and you have a great novel. Highly recommended! ~Patti