One afternoon in May, 8-year-old Ilaria gets into the car with her father, expecting to go out to dinner with her mother and sister. Instead, she is taken across the border, on a whirlwind road trip around Italy with her father, from Trieste to Rome and Sicily, sleeping in roadside hotels and singing to the radio. But Ilaria's father is unpredictable, and she never knows which version of him she will get: charming and funny, or volatile and drunk. Torn between her life in Geneva with her mother and this strange shifting adventure on the road, Ilaria doesn't know who to side with in her parents' acrimonious separation. Throughout her travels, Ilaria meets a rag-tag cast of characters, learns how to light a cigarette, discovers when is best to keep quiet around her father, and finds comfort in her lovable teddy bear Birillo. Ilaria's voice is singular and powerful. Based on the author's own experience, this deeply moving novel captures the blurred lines between love and harm, memory and reality, fear and wonder. Ilaria is a haunting, intimate coming of age story about a girl who is forced to grow up too soon, and about the fragile moments of beauty she finds along the way.
