Lost on Me

Like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, Veronica Raimo mocks the absurdities of her family life as well as tries to reconcile her own ambiguous feelings. A bold, provocative, and original book

If you enjoy Deborah Levy or Natalia Ginzburg, then you'll appreciate the writing of Italian author and translator, Veronica Raimo. Deeply original and with kudos from Naoise Dolan and Katherine Heiny, this bildungsroman follows Vero, a 15-year-old girl, writer and compulsive liar as she plots various bids for freedom, all of which are thwarted by her savvy mother. The film rights have been snapped up by Fandango, so look out for news of a future movie

With its stellar voice, Raimo's inquisitive and vulnerable novel proves tough to put down

Infused with a hilarious dry wit wrung from a wry attitude to life, Lost On Me stands out as a brilliant and inventive modern novel in English thanks to an outstanding translation for which Leah Janeczko deserves much credit

A desecrating and tender portrait of family that reels us in from the very first lines

When the book you start reading is immediately hilarious and deeply disturbing, you know you're onto something special. Lost on Me is that book

Lost on Me was anything but; I was utterly seduced by this wry and fearless novel featuring the unforgettable voice of Vero, a young woman with a sharp sense of humour and a splendid eye for the absurd

Veronica Raimo is a stupendous comedian

Reading this novel is a blast ... Many of the pages are jellyfish stings: they burn on and on

What a fresh, vivid and unpredictable voice, bursting with life, I loved it. Finally something that's not like everything else.

Remarkable. A darkly funny novel of rhythm, subtlety and nuance ... a writer who deserves as wide an audience as possible

If Sheila Heti was Italian and wrote a modern Franny & Zooey, it would approximate how powerful and magnificent Veronica Raimo's novel Lost on Me is.

I adored Lost on Me. With combustive prose and oxidising wit, Veronica Raimo sets fire to the Bildungsroman. A clear-eyed comedic talent who bends the novel form to her will

A story that nails us down with a powerful first-person voice, clear and exhilarating.

A uproariously funny portrait of an unconventional family from a writer who knows the sliver of ice in the heart as well as she knows love. This deliciously enjoyable novel is a true original and one to savour

Many pages in this novel are so intense and unscrupulous that one feels the apprehension of being caught spying in a stranger's mailbox

Funny and tender

Is it possible, today, to completely reinvent auto-fiction? For Veronica Raimo it clearly is. Get ready to talk about this book for a long, long time

I fell head over heels in love with Lost on Me. What a thrillingly original voice! Raimo writes with a tender brutality that is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking

This bittersweet work of autofiction charts Verika's journey through her neurotic childhood to womanhood and her attempts - literal and metaphorical - to escape her family and their influence. Smart, funny ... a sharply tender portrait of a young woman's becoming

Lost on Me is the naughty grandson of Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon ... Raimo has tapped the novelistic potential of her affections and has transformed them into comedy. The result deserves all of the praise flaunted on the cover

Filled with humour and neuroses ... a witty and complex portrait of a woman becoming herself

Restless and sly ... intelligently spiky

This book made me want to clear my calendar and read everything of Raimo's I could get my hands on. Incisive, engrossing, and deeply funny

Wild, funny and disturbing, all I ask of a book about mothers and their daughters.

Excellent ... written in a spare and precise style from the pen of a biting narrator. It would be simply impossible for a book this good to go unnoticed

Highly entertaining, thought-provoking and one of 2023's best novels yet