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Gli Effetti Secondari Dei Sogni (2007)

by Delphine de Vigan(Favorite Author)

3.73 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8804578734 (ISBN13: 9788804578734)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Arnoldo Mondadori

review 1: I read a beautiful book last night that paints such a picture of homelessness that I can’t help but be endeared to it. I’m all about the personal stories, and the want or even need to help a single person, and when that help can’t be given, I just die inside. I think that, reading this book at two in the morning, and finishing it like that, I did die a little inside. The book is about a girl called Lou, who lives in Paris. It’s so interesting to read a book set in Europe through the eyes of a girl who has only ever lived in Europe, and to whom all the European customs that I may or may not be accustomed to are perfectly normal and natural. Saying “euros” instead of “dollars”; saying “Year Eleven” instead of “Grade Eleven”, because that is the way yo... moreu say it in France. Anyway, so it’s set in Paris. The protagonist has an IQ of 160, which is why she’s in grade 11 at age 13. She’s quite amazing. While at a train station (she loves to observe people at train stations), she meets a young homeless girl named No (short for Nolwenn). Because Lou has a presentation to do on homelessness, she asks for No’s help, and receives it—she gets to talk to her and find out all sorts of things about the homeless in Paris, and in return gets a person to talk to about all the weird little things she finds fascinating. But No disappears, and Lou goes crazy looking for her, until eventually No shows up at her school entirely wasted away, and Lou comes up with an idea—she’ll take her in. Lou asks her parents—both of whom are still depressed over Chloe, their baby’s, death—if No can stay there, and to her surprize, they say yes. And everything is going swimmingly until Lou and her parents have to leave No alone for a week. Lou is ridiculously worried, and rightly so—it all goes downhill from there. Even though No now has a job, it’s a horrible one, and she goes into a drinking, drug abusing state where she works nights and sleeps days and eventually, No’s parents kick her out. No moves into Lucas’s (a boy who fails at school basically on purpose and who is Lou’s other best friend), and there the routine continues. The thing is that despite what has happened, No is still a beautiful person, and she’s still vulnerable and scared and she still loves Lou and Lucas to pieces. I think that at some point she starts working the streets as a prostitute, though that is never stated, and that’s how she comes into so much money at the end when Lou promises to run away with her to Ireland. But No leaves Lou behind, and the trains leaves, and she goes by herself, and it’s quite clear what the message is, and it’s what No’s been saying all along: “It’s NOT YOUR LIFE,” she says. You shouldn’t be doing this and I love you, and for your sake I’m going to keep you away from me and the horrible things I do to survive in life, and I’m very sorry but it’s the only way.AND THAT JUST BREAKS MY HEART IN TWO!I love No. I do, really; I just adore her. She’s so sensitive and caring and even when she’s at her worst, she is at her prettiest, because on the inside, it doesn’t matter what happens—she still loves Lou, and Lou’s happiness matters to her more than anything that money can buy. So she gives—as much as she can—to repay Lou, but at the end of the day, when she has to leave Lucas’s otherwise his mother will find out, she knows that protecting Lou is all that matters. She leaves her with happy memories in their last day together, and rips the bandage all out at once. She’s gone.The story is so potent, so true—I can see little things where the author has inserted her character’s quirks in her writing (for example, no numbers or names on the chapters because Lou dislikes it), and how it just ends, just like that, abruptly, and there is no conclusion to the story because there is no conclusion to life. It does just end, and we will never know what becomes of anyone once they’re gone—or once we’re gone, more like.
review 2: An abnormally high IQ has landed thirteen-year-old Lou in a class two years ahead of her age where, physically small by any standard, she is an introverted loner, with the added burden of being an only child whose mother has been traumatised by a recent family tragedy. Terrified by the prospect of having to give a presentation, Lou blurts out her proposed theme of “the homeless” based on a real interview. She has in mind No, a down-and-out eighteen-year-old who haunts the Austerlitz railway station in Paris, where she has aroused Lou’s interest and stimulated her overactive imagination.It is apparent from the outset that the strong rapport and friendship which develops between the two is unlikely to lead to a happy ending in the real world. This well-developed story is saved from mawkishness by the humorous aspects of Lou’s eccentric hobbies and her tendency to take people too literally at times, together with what she learns about life from her dealings with No. Lou’s sense of outrage over the plight of the homeless makes one regret one’s own adult loss of idealism. Her anguish that reality is not like one’s utopian dreams is replaced by acceptance, even whilst observing the madness of the “normal”, “sane” world.This story works well as a novel for both teenagers and adult readers, particularly those wishing to put their French to use in a very readable text. There are a few false notes, such as initial suggestions that Lou might be autistic, whereas she struck me as far too neat and conformist in class, well-organised and empathetic for this to be the case. Her crush on the handsome but rebellious seventeen-year-old Lucas, who has been held back for two years in the same class, is convincing but their relationship seems a little corny at times. It is of course necessary to the plot for Lucas to have neglectful parents who have left him home alone in a flat where the three main characters can hang out free from adult interference. less

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