White as Silence, Red as Song
by
About:
International bestseller White as Milk, Red as Blood, has been called the Italian The Fault in Our Stars.
Leo is an ordinary sixteen-year-old: he loves hanging out with his friends, playing soccer, and zipping around on his motorbike. The time he has to spend at school is a drag, and his teachers are "a protected species that you hope will become extinct," so when a new history and philosophy teacher arrives, Leo greets him with his usual antipathy. But this young man turns out to be different. His eyes sparkle when he talks, and he encourages his students to live passionately, and follow their dreams.
Leo now feels like a lion, as his name suggests, but there is still one thing that terrifies him: the color white. White is absence; everything related to deprivation and loss in his life is white. Red, on the other hand, is the color of love, passion and blood; red is the color of Beatrice's hair. Leo's dream is a girl named Beatrice, the prettiest in school. Beatrice is irresistible - one look from her is enough to make Leo forget about everything else.
There is, however, a female presence much closer to Leo, which he finds harder to see because she's right under his nose: the ever-dependable and serene Silvia. When he discovers that Beatrice has leukemia and that her disease is related to the white that scares him so much, Leo is forced to search within himself, to bleed and to be reborn. In the process, he comes to understand that dreams must never die, and he finds the strength to believe in something bigger than himself.
White as Milk, Red as Blood is not only a coming-of-age story and the narrative of a school year, but it is also a bold novel that, through Leo's monologue - at times easy-going and full of verve, at times more intimate and anguished - depicts what happens when suffering and shock burst into the world of a teenager, and the world of adults is rendered speechless.
Leo is an ordinary sixteen-year-old: he loves hanging out with his friends, playing soccer, and zipping around on his motorbike. The time he has to spend at school is a drag, and his teachers are "a protected species that you hope will become extinct," so when a new history and philosophy teacher arrives, Leo greets him with his usual antipathy. But this young man turns out to be different. His eyes sparkle when he talks, and he encourages his students to live passionately, and follow their dreams.
Leo now feels like a lion, as his name suggests, but there is still one thing that terrifies him: the color white. White is absence; everything related to deprivation and loss in his life is white. Red, on the other hand, is the color of love, passion and blood; red is the color of Beatrice's hair. Leo's dream is a girl named Beatrice, the prettiest in school. Beatrice is irresistible - one look from her is enough to make Leo forget about everything else.
There is, however, a female presence much closer to Leo, which he finds harder to see because she's right under his nose: the ever-dependable and serene Silvia. When he discovers that Beatrice has leukemia and that her disease is related to the white that scares him so much, Leo is forced to search within himself, to bleed and to be reborn. In the process, he comes to understand that dreams must never die, and he finds the strength to believe in something bigger than himself.
White as Milk, Red as Blood is not only a coming-of-age story and the narrative of a school year, but it is also a bold novel that, through Leo's monologue - at times easy-going and full of verve, at times more intimate and anguished - depicts what happens when suffering and shock burst into the world of a teenager, and the world of adults is rendered speechless.
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My Thoughts:
White as Silence, Red as Song is a beautifully written book that requires the reader to think about what they are taking in with each page. This book has made me really question whether this book was for me or not. I liked this book as it made me think. It made me contemplate what I appreciate in life, the simple things, really.
This book has been compared to The Fault in Our Stars, which I have read and did not really enjoy all that much, plus all the hype made it worse, so then there is that, but I did enjoy the intense emotion, which is maybe why I enjoyed this book. This book comes with lots of emotions and you have to be willing to do the work and sort it out.
Overall, I would say this is a good book. Rich in emotion and detail, you'll love reading this book from Leo's perspective. I think this book is beautifully written and has great substance. I recommend reading it!
Alessandro D'Avenia, born in 1977 in Palermo, holds a PhD in classics and is a high school literature teacher and screenwriter.
D'Avenia was born on May 2, 1977 by Rita and Giuseppe D'Avenia, the third of six children. Since 1990 he attended the classical high school Vittorio Emanuele II of Palermo, where he met father Pino Puglisi who taught religion in the same institution and whose figure is strongly influenced, as well as that of the teacher of letters.
In 1995 he moved to Rome to attend the faculty of classical letters at La Sapienza University. In 2000 he graduated in classical literature.
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