The Performance

What is reality?
I truly enjoyed the premise of this book, if you suspend your knowledge of mental illness for the time it takes to read the book. The idea of being able to “cure” somebody by using their illness as their medicine was interesting. The foreshadowing was heavy handed at times, but not unenjoyable to read. My main problem with this book was that it seemed to drag in places towards the beginning, but the last half of the book was riveting and I couldn’t put it down. Thanks to NetGalley and World Editions for the ARC.

EDIT - WRONG REVIEW SENT IN - PLEASE DELETE (I have contacted Netgalley Support on 6 May 2022)
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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ ½
Genre: General Fiction

A talented actress (Giorgia) falls in love with a man (Filippo) and for his sake, she decides to put an end to her career in stage acting. One day she meets her old stage director (Mauro) who encourages her to make a comeback to her stage acting career. Going through extreme stress and losing the grip on reality causes a severe breakdown in the actress who ends up being placed in a clinic. The two men each will do whatever it takes to win Giorgia back.

I liked the ideas the author put in this story. Giorgia being in that thin line between reality and fiction was truly fascinating. This is the kind of plot which puts lots of doubts into the reader’s head. It is not confusing but it definitely will make you raise so many questions about life and what is real and what is not. Readers with mental health issues need to be cautious if they decide to read this book.

The story is narrated from Filippo’s point of view. We see the world from his perspective. And through his emotions, we get to know the other characters and what he thinks about them. I think the author was successful in capturing all the different characters’ vulnerabilities. They felt real to me. This is a good debut novel but sometimes I felt some parts slowed down the plot which made me feel as if the book was way more than 300 pages.

The ending was splendid. I feel that is an ending that can be subjectively interpreted by the readers. If you are looking for a story that deals with love, manipulation, mental health, and loss of identity, then this would make an interesting read. Add a crazy love triangle to it and you have more reasons to be dazzled.

Many thanks to the publisher World Editions and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.

I did not know ANYTHING about this one before I started reading this. I wanted to go in blind and it was a big surprise that the plot actually turned out to be amazing and fabulous.
The writing and reflections capture you and drag you into the story as you will read. A story that will inevitably lead the reader to ask himself questions and reflect on some mechanisms of his being. What choices would we make if we found ourselves one day in Filippo's place.
Highly recommend.

Posted to my Instagram @bookish_at_bd

📚Review📚 4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
‘Performance’ by Claudia Petrucci
(Translated by Anne Milano Appel)

Thank you to @worldedbooks for the E-ARC through @netgalley

An incredible debut novel. One of those concepts that gets its fingernails into the grooves of your brain and wriggles in.
I would describe this as a philosophical exploration of our psychological selves; how our identities are created and by whom. In turn, this challenges claims to who we ‘really are’ - what is ‘real’ in that context?

The writing (& translation) was beautiful.
The early narration confused me initially but made sense when the manipulation of Georgia’s character kicked in. (How could he know what she was thinking or feeling, I thought… so many layers on which that worked but I can’t tell you for fear of spoiling your working out).

I would completely recommend this.
Just leave a good chunk of time after you complete this novel (out August 2nd) to clear the palette before your next read because ‘The Performance’ is like a powerful, pervasive wine whose aftertaste will not be easy to let go.

#bookgalley #bookreview #bookreviewer #bookstagram #bookstagramuk #booksbooksbooks #bookreader #booklover #ThePerformance #claudiapetrucci

The Performance is the perfect title for this book (in translation from original Italian). It's all about the performances we put on daily, the various masks we don for our many audiences, and how our loved ones (and those who think they know what's best for us) perceive us.

The way the story is framed--about a woman with a severe mental illness who is literally being fought over by two men who want to rewrite her entire narrative for her--is both clever and insidious. The two men in this book truly love Giorgia. After she has a psychotic break while on stage performing in a play that one of the men is directing, they form a team to try to help her heal. What starts as innocent reading at her (doped and catatonic) bedside and long visits waiting for her respond, ends with her finally responding. But in character, not as herself.

This makes them determined to fix her by letting her be in character all of the time. Which progresses to them telling her what kind of a performance she can put on (for them) so they can have what they consider "the real Giorgia' back in their lives. It's clever, insidious, and darkly entertaining to imagine an entire life rewritten by a couple of men who are both in love with the same woman so much they work together to encourage her to live and speak and operate in their worlds the way they want her to/how they best remember her.

The translation is good but not perfect and at times I had to read a passage more than once to appreciate it but the prose is what makes this book (which is on some levels annoying since these men are in this less to heal her but more to "get her back where she belongs' i.e. performing her roles with them) a real pleasure to read.
3.5 stars

This is so much more than a novel, it is literally like the author is holding a mirror up to you and saying look at yoursefl - what do you think about that and how does that make you feel about yourself.
It was such a thought provoking read that was well written with great chjaracters and such an interesting premise. Do youself a favour, go in blind and read this - I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I read it. An amazing book.

I'm surprised I didn't love this as Petrucci does something pretty clever here: she takes academic theories about identity as performance, of the cultural and social pressures which work with and against the individual to mould personality, and of how 'reality' is as much about perspective, subjectivity, contingency and narrativisation as anything more purely objective - and she weaves them all into a miniature where Claudia is 'us' and her (male) partner and (male) would-be lover (who is also a theatre professional) are the external forces which work on who she is and how she is in the world.

Some of the underpinning is not especially subtle but works towards the central meaning of the piece: the role of theatre, plays (Twelfth Night, Wedekind's Spring Awakening'), literal performances and scriptwriting, the way Claudia has barely a voice of her own and even her words are conveyed through indirect speech by her partner and so are always his perception of what she thinks, feels and says.

For all my interest, though, this feels both a bit flat and also too extended for the things it wants to say - the same points that are made in over 300 pages could, I suspect, have been made in 200, resulting in a tauter, more compressed reading experience. I enjoyed this on an intellectual level but would have liked more personal connection and emotion - all the same, well worth a read for its postmodern views, and it might make a good companion piece to Eleanor Catton's The Rehearsal.