SYNOPSIS: Bianca just dropped out of a bachelor degree she didn’t like, her parents are about to divorce and her little brothers are getting noisier every day. The perfect opportunity to escape comes when her boyfriend, Miguel, has to go to Rome to open a company for his father. Bianca decides that learning Italian, getting a temporary job and helping Miguel in his business would be a good start. What seemed like a dream, however, becomes an even bigger uncertainty when Miguel stays out all the time, Bianca’s jobs don’t last more than a week and each day closer to Enzo — Miguel’s best friend, with whom they share an apartment —, she starts to question her feelings.

“The Letters of Love” is a youthful novel that addresses the complications of when you start to love two persons at the same time, and those two persons share a bond of friendship and trust. When love and desire break those bonds and build new ones, forming a tangle of confusing and painful feelings. It also talks about the discovery of oneself, of what worries a young adult, the normal concerns of growing up, and the happiness to find someone that sees the reality in a similar way to yours. It is the story of a girl in Rome who grows, learns, loves and lives in the most intense way.

Original title: As Letras do Amor 
Language: Portuguese (BR)
Year: 2016
Publisher: Novas Páginas / Novo Conceito
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9788581638430

 

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LITTLE PREVIEW…

“Lately, it seems like every time a romantic movie ends, in that usual kiss or wedding scene — you know, with the epic song playing, the bells ringing and all that — I wonder: “Ok, and now what?”

I don’t know what is wrong with the world, or if it’s only Hollywood, but why does the story end when it, in fact, begins? I mean, the nice part is only when they meet, and when they get married everything gets so predictable that is not worth showing?

I look at the TV, the credits of ‘Love in Two Tones’ rolling up, and I imagine what comes after for Laura and Max, the protagonists of the story. She is home, ironing some clothes, and he is watching football. They both hang out with their friends. They go to bed. They wake up every morning and go to work. They share a life with one another, but nobody wants to watch a movie about that. Well, unless there is shootings, zombies, he becomes a secret agent or she finds a lover. Things like that.

“Of course I understand that routine is not exciting, but what does this mean?” I shake the remote control. “That we are going to feel bored with people we know for a long time? And that all marriages are doomed since day one, and that is why it’s not worth showing how boring it is to see the decline of what was an extremely exciting romance in the beginning?”

“MOM, BIANCA IS TALKING TO HERSELF AGAIN!” yells my five-year-old brother, Breno, ready to take the spot in front of the television.

Sighing, I get out of the couch, change to the children’s channel and I let Breno get entertained by the crazy cartoons of nowadays. You know, those with a bunch of geometric, colorful characters that yell more than they speak, very different from my “Lion King generation”. I go up to my room, because, after all, Breno is right. Talking to Mari is much better than talking to myself.

As soon as I get there, I take my phone and go down to the garden, because my parent’s effusive argument in the next room muffles all other sounds.

“It’s not like you are going to marry him, Bianca!” says Mari on the phone. “It’s only six months, and you two will be living with someone else.”

I’m lying on the grass, looking up at the clouds. One of them looks like the map of Europe.

“Yeah, but we will have our own room with double bed, he will have to act like a mature guy and all that, and I will have to cook, wash clothes…”

“Come on, girl, you’re not giving up now, are you? He needs you! Are you really going to abandon him for six months and miss the opportunity to see what would be like to live together?”

“Hm.” I think about my next six months in case I choose to stay home. No university, my parents fighting, my brothers being noisy…

“Not to mention that it will be good for you to find out what to do with your life,” she continues. “Better work there than here, I think. You will only be able to take the admission test for university next semester, anyway.”

“If I take it…” I point out. “But that is not the point. I know that Italy will be good for me. I want to get out of here anyway. The problem is the pseudo-marriage thing…” (Pages 7-8)