3/5 stars

What's it about? Leo wanders indifferently around Rome, living from paycheck to paycheck and failing at getting sober. On his thirtieth birthday, he meets Arianna, and their tepid affair causes Leo to reexamine meaning in his life.

How’d I find it? The staff recommendations shelf at Powell’s has the goods.

Who will enjoy this book? This book is Catcher in the Rye in the style of Bret Easton Ellis.

What stood out? Rome seems to hit people in a particular way, and Calligarich captures that feeling, the burden of the city’s history, its frivolity. The reader may be following Leo through the streets in the 1970s, but they might as well be trailing Jep in Paolo Sorrentino’s 2013 film La Grande Bellezza or Marcello in La Dolce Vita.

Which line made me feel something? Leo’s best friend, Graziano, kept me smiling: “We found ourselves in a cloister enclosed by columns carved from boulders. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘More rocks.’”