Why did Gita love this book?
This is a book you will love or hate. I loved it and found it frighteningly relatable despite being originally published in Italy in the 1950s.
Forbidden Notebook, newly translated into English, is an intimate, almost claustrophobic, account of how our protagonist, Valeria, begins writing her thoughts and feelings in a notebook, which she keeps hidden. Only in the act of hiding it does she realize that she has nowhere of her own in the shared family apartment, and only by writing does she gain a sense of her own self after years devoted to her family.
To quote the poet Muriel Rukeyser, "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." And for Valeria, it does.
1 author picked Forbidden Notebook as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
"Powerful." -The New Yorker
"Brilliant." -The Wall Street Journal
"Astounding." -NPR
"Forceful, clear and morally engaged." -The Washington Post
"Subversive." -The New York Times Book Review
"An exquisite, tormented howl." -The Financial Times
"Quick, propulsive, and addictive." -Los Angeles Review of Books
"Gripping." -Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A remarkable story." -Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"Wrenching, sardonic." -Kirkus (starred review)
"As relevant today as it was in postwar Italy." -Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"In her diary de Cespedes confides, "I will never be a great writer." Here I take her to task for not knowing something about herself-for she was a great…
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