Favorite readings are something to be shared and our community recommends one of the ten novels selected from among the Gems of the Montreuil Children's Book Fair every day.
Today, a novel in the "teen fiction" category (12-17 years old), "Malencontre" by Laurence Biberfeld, published on June 9, 2022 by Éditions IN8.
Christian Dorsan, author, blogger and contributor to the 20 Minutes Books reading group, recommends
Malencontre
by Laurence Biberfeld, published on June 9, 2022 by Éditions IN8 and selected among the Pépites for the best teenage novel (12-17 years old) at the Salon du livre and the youth press, from November 30 to December 5 in Montreuil.
His favorite quote:
(…) love is just a form of hatred that we have against ourselves, a desire to kill ourselves that we carry around, and that we try to free through someone else… For that the Madman was an out of the question candidate competition.
He had everything to be loved, everything to destroy.
Why this book?
Because this book, which takes place during a metro journey,
is a journey into the world of precariousness, a world in which we are condemned to social assistance and deprived of speech.
Luiza's life is not simple and does not look like a fairy tale.
She fights to survive and wants to get by on her own.
Because this initiatory journey will allow Marco
to meet the father he was looking for in his mother's episodic relationships.
Asthmatic and epileptic, Marco is a boy who is weakened by illness and meeting this absent, fantasized father is an opportunity to put an end to his quest for identity.
Because this book is a choral novel: three voices
are heard, that of Luiza, with her Cape Verdean language, her street verb, full of violence and love for her son.
The voice of the social worker, Mrs. Espalion, locked in a deformed body, who helps others to help herself, trying to get out of a painful past and who ends up understanding that if money helps heals, it is also the origin of evil.
Marco's voice: a voice that will change and grow.
Because Laurence Biberfeld's writing is a raw writing
that immerses the reader in the world left behind, and at the same time, his committed speech sweeps away the nuances, elevates the debate by humanizing it.
Because it is a strong,
radical, poignant and intelligent book.
The essentials in 2 minutes
The plot.
Luiza flees with her young son Marco, the unsanitary apartment to start a new life, at the end of the metro line.
Accompanied by his ferret Zazou, Marco does not know that in the train, he will meet his father, a dangerous individual.
Characters.
Anne Espalion, social worker, Luiza, a Cape Verdean refugee and her son Marco, a boy in fragile health, Joaquim the Crazy father of Marco and Zazou, the ferret who never leaves Marco.
Places.
Paris.
The time.
Current.
The author.
Laurence Biberfeld is a committed author who left National Education to devote herself to literature.
His novels talk about facts of society, humanity, dramas of everyday life.
She participated in the writing of an Octopus survey.
This book was read with a
lot of emotion and rage: the style is direct, violent but combative, tenacious.
Laurence Biberfeld uncompromisingly offers us a slice of people's lives that we meet while looking away for fear one day of resembling them.
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Book sheet 20 Minutes
Books
Youth
Book Fair
Adolescence
Montreuil
Ile-de-France