What do they know about being free

She is allowed to run across the road to the village with her brother Cosimino and come home sweaty and with dirty knees. But the older Oliva gets, the more her world changes. The girl becomes a young woman, and women are like a vase, her mother claims. If you break it, you take it. Oliva finally has to find out for herself what this means. When the tacit system of female oppression in which she lives forces her to marry the man who abused her, she has to make a decision: Is Oliva willing to pay the price for her rebellion?

Viola Ardone marvellously evokes a country and its people, customs and passions, breathing life into an unforgettable girl in all her intensity, despair and bravery. A novel that alternates between light-heartedness and tragedy - powerful, captivating and liberating.