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Il cerchio perfetto
Due donne lontane nel tempo, una casa che le accomuna e le unisce, due vite che sembrano avvicinarsi e sovrapporsi nella circolarità di una tensione appassionante.
232 pages, Paperback
Published May 2, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I've noticed that everyone else seems to have reviewed this book as a piece of art. I am afraid I am all about the plot, which is also very clever.
Set in two timelines The Perfect Circle is the story of a house - 7 Rue in Milan. In 1985 Lidia is engaged to be married and has been given a house by her father but she wants big changes and employs architect, Dario, to bring a fresh new look to the building. But as time passes Lidia and Dario begin an affair despite Dario being married with children.
At some unnamed time in the future Irene Sartori, a real estate agent, has been charged with getting the house on Rue Saterna ready for auction. Sartori is an expert at selling historically important houses and sets about organising the unusual but unused house. However she soon finds the house has a resident - what should do about the frightened girl she finds there and what is her real story?
This book brings in so different elements, weaving the history of the house along with the girl's story and Irene's own personal circumstances with her parents and desire for a child. The book is quite short but feels like a slow burn right up until the explosive end, which took me completely by surprise.
The characters of Irene and Lidia feel quite ethereal throughout and Milan itself almost feels like another character as the strange fog that descends over the city changes the nature of everything that happens.
I really did enjoy the book and the end is excellent. Definitely recommended.
Thankyou to Netgalley and World Editions for the digital review copy.
Set in two timelines The Perfect Circle is the story of a house - 7 Rue in Milan. In 1985 Lidia is engaged to be married and has been given a house by her father but she wants big changes and employs architect, Dario, to bring a fresh new look to the building. But as time passes Lidia and Dario begin an affair despite Dario being married with children.
At some unnamed time in the future Irene Sartori, a real estate agent, has been charged with getting the house on Rue Saterna ready for auction. Sartori is an expert at selling historically important houses and sets about organising the unusual but unused house. However she soon finds the house has a resident - what should do about the frightened girl she finds there and what is her real story?
This book brings in so different elements, weaving the history of the house along with the girl's story and Irene's own personal circumstances with her parents and desire for a child. The book is quite short but feels like a slow burn right up until the explosive end, which took me completely by surprise.
The characters of Irene and Lidia feel quite ethereal throughout and Milan itself almost feels like another character as the strange fog that descends over the city changes the nature of everything that happens.
I really did enjoy the book and the end is excellent. Definitely recommended.
Thankyou to Netgalley and World Editions for the digital review copy.
June 26, 2023
Il titolo dice tutto: il cerchio perfetto. Un romanzo che cambia in continuazione, si trasforma, evolve quasi nel distopico fino ad un inaspettato finale, che è la chiusura perfetta del cerchio.
Anche la scrittura scivola veloce, a tratti accelerando, a volte costringendoti a delle lunghe pause per incastrare i pezzi, godere del dettaglio delle descrizioni, soprattutto delle immagini di questa casa di Via Saterna in una Milano sospesa tra passato e futuro.
Anche la scrittura scivola veloce, a tratti accelerando, a volte costringendoti a delle lunghe pause per incastrare i pezzi, godere del dettaglio delle descrizioni, soprattutto delle immagini di questa casa di Via Saterna in una Milano sospesa tra passato e futuro.
June 22, 2026
What a unique and fascinating novel, “The Perfect Circle” by Claudia Petrucci is! It’s a mystery that grabs the reader right away!
The structure of the novel is best described as circular, like the staircase in the architecturally avant guard house in Milan, where the novel is set.
The story alternates between the mid-1980s when the house is being built for a rich young woman named Lidia, who is having an affair with the married architect, Dario.
We then travel 42 years forward in time to a Milan where the sun has been blocked out by a permanent fog, hinting of a global climate catastrophe and a war. Realtor Irene is tasked with selling the house, now abandoned and in disrepair. Irene is also wresting with the choice of whether or not to have a child before she ages out. The birthrate in Italy is so low that there are incentives to procreate. But do you bring a child into a dying planet?
In the first few pages of the book something happens to Lidia, and Petrucci tells her story backwards, which eventually brings the novel full circle with a shocking and twisty end.
This is the second novel (“The Performance”) I’ve read by Italian author Claudia Petrucci, and I’m hooked! She’s a modern master storyteller and I’ll be looking for more from her. Both books have been beautifully translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel.
(World Editions is a small publisher of wonderful and unique novels from all over the world. I’ve never been disappointed in any of their offerings.)
The structure of the novel is best described as circular, like the staircase in the architecturally avant guard house in Milan, where the novel is set.
The story alternates between the mid-1980s when the house is being built for a rich young woman named Lidia, who is having an affair with the married architect, Dario.
We then travel 42 years forward in time to a Milan where the sun has been blocked out by a permanent fog, hinting of a global climate catastrophe and a war. Realtor Irene is tasked with selling the house, now abandoned and in disrepair. Irene is also wresting with the choice of whether or not to have a child before she ages out. The birthrate in Italy is so low that there are incentives to procreate. But do you bring a child into a dying planet?
In the first few pages of the book something happens to Lidia, and Petrucci tells her story backwards, which eventually brings the novel full circle with a shocking and twisty end.
This is the second novel (“The Performance”) I’ve read by Italian author Claudia Petrucci, and I’m hooked! She’s a modern master storyteller and I’ll be looking for more from her. Both books have been beautifully translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel.
(World Editions is a small publisher of wonderful and unique novels from all over the world. I’ve never been disappointed in any of their offerings.)
November 7, 2025
Un luogo è ancora un luogo se non lo puoi vedere?
July 23, 2026
This is one of the craziest episodes of Love It or List It ever.
June 16, 2023
“Il cerchio perfetto” di Claudia Petrucci è uscito a maggio 2023 per la casa editrice Sellerio. Si tratta dell’opera seconda della scrittrice, che ha esordito nel 2020 con “L’esercizio”, per la Nave di Teseo. Vengono raccontate in parallelo due storie accomunate dall’onnipresenza della stessa casa in via Saterna, a Milano, caratterizzata da una pianta circolare interna che però esternamente appare quadrata. L’incipit è fulminante e ha luogo nel 1986, dov'è collocata la prima linea narrativa che poi procederà a ritroso. Ha come protagonista Lidia, una giovane ragazza ricca e proprietaria dell’immobile del quale aveva commissionato la ristrutturazione. L’altra metà del romanzo si svolge invece attorno al 2030-2040, in un futuro prossimo verosimile, e ha come attrice Irene, che è una curatrice fallimentare e vende proprietà di immenso valore artistico e culturale. Le viene commissionato un lavoro dall’avvocato Ferrari che coinvolge per l’appunto la casa di via Saterna. Lì, però, ad accogliere il suo ingresso ci sarà un’ospite inaspettata e misteriosa.
La trama è avvincente e il lettore cade in completa balia di Petrucci, che è capace di stregare e ingannare in modo sottile. Talvolta sembra chiaro fin da subito dove si voglia arrivare, ma ciò si scopre una menzogna o una mezza verità. Sono presenti diversi colpi di scena e il finale è inaspettato, le ultime pagine sono magnetiche ma l’interesse per i personaggi e per il loro destino viene mantenuto vivo per tutto il tempo del racconto. Lo stile di scrittura è elegante, ricercato e riconoscibilissimo, Petrucci sa domare le parole alla sua volontà ed è un grande piacere immergersi nella narrazione e nella caratterizzazione dei personaggi. Irene, che è la protagonista, è costantemente arrabbiata o infastidita, il lavoro è la sua vita ed è priva di scrupoli. Cambierà sensibilmente stando a contatto con l’ospite misteriosa della casa. La critica al capitalismo è evidente: si parla dei danni provocati dal riscaldamento globale, che toccano quotidianamente le persone, della povertà aumentata e della solitudine sempre più schiacciante. L’ambientazione temporale non è fondamentale per il funzionamento della trama ma si può considerare una buona aggiunta per trarre spunti di riflessione interessanti; a me ha convinto. C’è da dire però che il romanzo ha dei momenti di lentezza non indifferenti, specie nella parte centrale, che vengono parzialmente salvati dalla scrittura molto gradevole. Tuttavia sono il problema maggiore de “Il cerchio perfetto”, soprattutto quando si racconta ciò che succede negli anni ‘80, ossia della storia d’amore che è essenziale alla trama ma non è affatto coinvolgente. Sicuramente molti punti vengono riguadagnati con il finale. Confermo che a me Petrucci piace molto, anche se dei difetti ci sono e sono innegabili, vale comunque la pena di leggerla. Mi piace come lei ami raffigurare la finzione, la recita, il raggiro, che divengono reali nelle loro conseguenze.
La trama è avvincente e il lettore cade in completa balia di Petrucci, che è capace di stregare e ingannare in modo sottile. Talvolta sembra chiaro fin da subito dove si voglia arrivare, ma ciò si scopre una menzogna o una mezza verità. Sono presenti diversi colpi di scena e il finale è inaspettato, le ultime pagine sono magnetiche ma l’interesse per i personaggi e per il loro destino viene mantenuto vivo per tutto il tempo del racconto. Lo stile di scrittura è elegante, ricercato e riconoscibilissimo, Petrucci sa domare le parole alla sua volontà ed è un grande piacere immergersi nella narrazione e nella caratterizzazione dei personaggi. Irene, che è la protagonista, è costantemente arrabbiata o infastidita, il lavoro è la sua vita ed è priva di scrupoli. Cambierà sensibilmente stando a contatto con l’ospite misteriosa della casa. La critica al capitalismo è evidente: si parla dei danni provocati dal riscaldamento globale, che toccano quotidianamente le persone, della povertà aumentata e della solitudine sempre più schiacciante. L’ambientazione temporale non è fondamentale per il funzionamento della trama ma si può considerare una buona aggiunta per trarre spunti di riflessione interessanti; a me ha convinto. C’è da dire però che il romanzo ha dei momenti di lentezza non indifferenti, specie nella parte centrale, che vengono parzialmente salvati dalla scrittura molto gradevole. Tuttavia sono il problema maggiore de “Il cerchio perfetto”, soprattutto quando si racconta ciò che succede negli anni ‘80, ossia della storia d’amore che è essenziale alla trama ma non è affatto coinvolgente. Sicuramente molti punti vengono riguadagnati con il finale. Confermo che a me Petrucci piace molto, anche se dei difetti ci sono e sono innegabili, vale comunque la pena di leggerla. Mi piace come lei ami raffigurare la finzione, la recita, il raggiro, che divengono reali nelle loro conseguenze.
March 27, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley, World Editions, and Claudia Petrucci for giving me access to this eARC!
The Perfect Circle follows Irene, a woman who auctions off large estate-like properties to wealthy investors in a climate-ravaged Italy. She is tasked to sell a very unique property called Via Saterna, a property in which a young woman named Lidia died over 40 years ago. The narration jumps from the 80s, focusing on Lidia and the architect of Via Saterna, to modern times with Irene and a young woman found living in the house who also happens to be named Lidia. The house ends up taking over Irene's life in a way she did not expect with many twists and turns abounding. There were so many times where I thought I knew exactly where the book was going but the last third absolutely had me with my jaw hinged wide open. Petrucci knows how to set the reader up for a shock. She is also wonderful at building a very immersive setting, from the beauty of the property to the eeriness of the smog-laden Milan. There were some aspects of the plot that got weird real fast, but I do think that each bizarre moment had a proper place in building to the finale of the novel.
Once again, World Editions has picked to translate a phenomenal book and I cannot wait to read more!
4/5 stars!
The Perfect Circle follows Irene, a woman who auctions off large estate-like properties to wealthy investors in a climate-ravaged Italy. She is tasked to sell a very unique property called Via Saterna, a property in which a young woman named Lidia died over 40 years ago. The narration jumps from the 80s, focusing on Lidia and the architect of Via Saterna, to modern times with Irene and a young woman found living in the house who also happens to be named Lidia. The house ends up taking over Irene's life in a way she did not expect with many twists and turns abounding. There were so many times where I thought I knew exactly where the book was going but the last third absolutely had me with my jaw hinged wide open. Petrucci knows how to set the reader up for a shock. She is also wonderful at building a very immersive setting, from the beauty of the property to the eeriness of the smog-laden Milan. There were some aspects of the plot that got weird real fast, but I do think that each bizarre moment had a proper place in building to the finale of the novel.
Once again, World Editions has picked to translate a phenomenal book and I cannot wait to read more!
4/5 stars!
May 1, 2023
4,5⭐️ Claudia Petrucci è una maestra nell’arte della manipolazione. Folgorante!
November 19, 2025
Lots of shapes in this; circles (titularly), triangles, squares? Maybe.
Anyway I loved it, this had everything I could have wanted: mystery, real estate, lesbians? Maybe.
I really enjoyed the structure of this, moving forwards in the ‘present’ while backwards in the ‘past’ to unwind a story in both directions to come together to a shocking, satisfying but believable ending. I found all the character arcs engaging and well combined together to create a believable web of relationships that drive the story forward. The setting was also immaculate, dropping enough hints to the setting without feeling the need to explicitly tell us what’s happened and what it all means. I don’t know if there’s other stories coming from this world but I’m eager for it!!
Definitely a recommended read from me
Anyway I loved it, this had everything I could have wanted: mystery, real estate, lesbians? Maybe.
I really enjoyed the structure of this, moving forwards in the ‘present’ while backwards in the ‘past’ to unwind a story in both directions to come together to a shocking, satisfying but believable ending. I found all the character arcs engaging and well combined together to create a believable web of relationships that drive the story forward. The setting was also immaculate, dropping enough hints to the setting without feeling the need to explicitly tell us what’s happened and what it all means. I don’t know if there’s other stories coming from this world but I’m eager for it!!
Definitely a recommended read from me
January 26, 2024
Il finale, bello e inaspettato, è purtroppo rovinato dalle 200 pagine precedenti.
La distopia di un 2030 divorato dall'inquinamento è sviluppata male, tanto quanto il racconto degli anni 80, che potrebbe essere di qualsiasi altro momento storico, per come sono descritti.
La trama è sghemba. Ci mette troppo per decollare e vira in modo molto brusco nell'ultima parte. Per esigenze di trama, poi, la protagonista non si pone le domande più ovvie.
Si salvano pochi aspetti: l'originalità della struttura, la gestione del tema della maternità.
La distopia di un 2030 divorato dall'inquinamento è sviluppata male, tanto quanto il racconto degli anni 80, che potrebbe essere di qualsiasi altro momento storico, per come sono descritti.
La trama è sghemba. Ci mette troppo per decollare e vira in modo molto brusco nell'ultima parte. Per esigenze di trama, poi, la protagonista non si pone le domande più ovvie.
Si salvano pochi aspetti: l'originalità della struttura, la gestione del tema della maternità.
April 24, 2026
Real Rating: 4.25* of five
The Publisher Says: Two women far apart in time, a mysterious unsellable mansion in Milan that connects them: two lives that start to overlap as impossible parallels are revealed in this story of passion, betrayal, and selfish desire.
In the round house on Via Saterna, its Palladian square exterior nothing but a trompe-l’oeil, the sun pierces through the central skylight. Its rays pass three floors unobstructed, before reaching the circle below at the heart of the house: four fingers of water filling a little silver basin. It is here that young Lidia dies, setting an end to her clandestine love affair with the ambitious architect. It is this house that real-estate agent Irene is asked to sell, decades later, as the climate catastrophe escalates, cloaking the divided city in a permanent orange haze. Returning to her native Milan for the sale, Irene feels the brunt of her father’s judgement. He is a proud Italian and prouder architect—how could his own daughter make a living selling cultural patrimony to the highest foreign bidder?
As she faces this new Milan and the old family tensions she had avoided while living in Rome, Irene throws herself into the impossible sale, getting to know Via Saterna intimately—this space that is as unsettling as it is hostile, with the slowly emerging traces of Lidia’s interrupted life. In every room of the house, the burden of a mysterious, unresolved past can be felt, remnants of a selfish and manipulative love.
The Perfect Circle tackles themes like time, death, and repetition with depth and originality, while carrying its philosophy lightly. Through it all, the novel is a subtly disturbing page-turner, every new page adding a new layer and twist.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: The Performance, my previous experience by this author/translator duo, was not a success the way this read was. It was not the prose that presented me with a problem, it was the story the elegant and insightful prose was telling that turned me off. "Positive gaslighting" is a bridge too far for this old-man brain to go along with.
Thank all those useless gods I'm not confronted by this issue in The Perfect Circle. I remember the Milan of the 1980s, and it's evoked very clearly in the setting of this strange, almost sentient-seeming house at 7 Via Saterna. I spent my earliest years in a house that, like this one, felt deeply and unnervingly like it was aware. I hope whoever lives there now has made friends with the house, otherwise it will eat their happiness the way my house and the Via Saterna did to its earlier inhabitants. I'm clear about why Lidia, the owner from 1985 and Dario, the architect she hired to revamp the place ended up the way they did. Their passionate, relationship-destroying affair, the tragedies (see the "CW" tag and heed it) that come from it...all of it was that damned house! In truth, the house should be exorcised.
If you're not clear which house I'm referring to, both is your best assumption.
The evevnts of the 1980s provide the foundation for a story in the near future, in a Milan that's more entombed than protected from a dystopian world as the smog of the 1980s is now...um...fog/mist/atmospheric weirdnss. 7 Via Saterna is unoccupied, never was, and will finally be sold once Irene gets to work on the problem of how to present it to buyers. She didn't count on discovering the unoccupied house is lived in by a young woman called, interestingly, Lidia. Now what can she do to shift this property as she's contracted to do? Who is the mysterious young Lidia, who can't be the 1980s woman who owned the house or a descendant of hers as there were no descendants?
What's so wonderful about Author Petrucci's Italian text and Translator Appel's rendering of it is how sinuous and beautifully recursive it is. The clues as to your place in time during any given moment of the story are subtle, easy to miss; I missed them all...I was only aware that I had missed them once I twigged to the storytelling technique that had worked so perfectly on me.
I'm a pretty experienced reader. It takes a masterful hand to wave my attention away without also losing my interest in so doing. I was left feeling really impressed, really delighted, when at the very end of the story I caught on to what was happening.
That sounds like a five, or even five-plus star review. There aren't five full stars on the rating scale. What happened? The hints and tickles of a lesbian attraction, that's what. It was so underdeveloped as to be pointless, a distraction that added nothing to the story. In 2026 that feels like queerbaiting, not character-building; it could easily be snipped out without the smallest change to anything being needed. So no, no perfect rating...but a whole huge leap up over the first Petrucci I read in my esteem.
I hope this team will bring more stories to the anglophone world.
The Publisher Says: Two women far apart in time, a mysterious unsellable mansion in Milan that connects them: two lives that start to overlap as impossible parallels are revealed in this story of passion, betrayal, and selfish desire.
In the round house on Via Saterna, its Palladian square exterior nothing but a trompe-l’oeil, the sun pierces through the central skylight. Its rays pass three floors unobstructed, before reaching the circle below at the heart of the house: four fingers of water filling a little silver basin. It is here that young Lidia dies, setting an end to her clandestine love affair with the ambitious architect. It is this house that real-estate agent Irene is asked to sell, decades later, as the climate catastrophe escalates, cloaking the divided city in a permanent orange haze. Returning to her native Milan for the sale, Irene feels the brunt of her father’s judgement. He is a proud Italian and prouder architect—how could his own daughter make a living selling cultural patrimony to the highest foreign bidder?
As she faces this new Milan and the old family tensions she had avoided while living in Rome, Irene throws herself into the impossible sale, getting to know Via Saterna intimately—this space that is as unsettling as it is hostile, with the slowly emerging traces of Lidia’s interrupted life. In every room of the house, the burden of a mysterious, unresolved past can be felt, remnants of a selfish and manipulative love.
The Perfect Circle tackles themes like time, death, and repetition with depth and originality, while carrying its philosophy lightly. Through it all, the novel is a subtly disturbing page-turner, every new page adding a new layer and twist.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: The Performance, my previous experience by this author/translator duo, was not a success the way this read was. It was not the prose that presented me with a problem, it was the story the elegant and insightful prose was telling that turned me off. "Positive gaslighting" is a bridge too far for this old-man brain to go along with.
Thank all those useless gods I'm not confronted by this issue in The Perfect Circle. I remember the Milan of the 1980s, and it's evoked very clearly in the setting of this strange, almost sentient-seeming house at 7 Via Saterna. I spent my earliest years in a house that, like this one, felt deeply and unnervingly like it was aware. I hope whoever lives there now has made friends with the house, otherwise it will eat their happiness the way my house and the Via Saterna did to its earlier inhabitants. I'm clear about why Lidia, the owner from 1985 and Dario, the architect she hired to revamp the place ended up the way they did. Their passionate, relationship-destroying affair, the tragedies (see the "CW" tag and heed it) that come from it...all of it was that damned house! In truth, the house should be exorcised.
If you're not clear which house I'm referring to, both is your best assumption.
The evevnts of the 1980s provide the foundation for a story in the near future, in a Milan that's more entombed than protected from a dystopian world as the smog of the 1980s is now...um...fog/mist/atmospheric weirdnss. 7 Via Saterna is unoccupied, never was, and will finally be sold once Irene gets to work on the problem of how to present it to buyers. She didn't count on discovering the unoccupied house is lived in by a young woman called, interestingly, Lidia. Now what can she do to shift this property as she's contracted to do? Who is the mysterious young Lidia, who can't be the 1980s woman who owned the house or a descendant of hers as there were no descendants?
What's so wonderful about Author Petrucci's Italian text and Translator Appel's rendering of it is how sinuous and beautifully recursive it is. The clues as to your place in time during any given moment of the story are subtle, easy to miss; I missed them all...I was only aware that I had missed them once I twigged to the storytelling technique that had worked so perfectly on me.
I'm a pretty experienced reader. It takes a masterful hand to wave my attention away without also losing my interest in so doing. I was left feeling really impressed, really delighted, when at the very end of the story I caught on to what was happening.
That sounds like a five, or even five-plus star review. There aren't five full stars on the rating scale. What happened? The hints and tickles of a lesbian attraction, that's what. It was so underdeveloped as to be pointless, a distraction that added nothing to the story. In 2026 that feels like queerbaiting, not character-building; it could easily be snipped out without the smallest change to anything being needed. So no, no perfect rating...but a whole huge leap up over the first Petrucci I read in my esteem.
I hope this team will bring more stories to the anglophone world.
April 13, 2026
To stay engaged in this story, I believe you had to have faith in the author’s intent. If you did, you would ultimately be rewarded with an ending that pulled all the confusing pieces together.
To say that this book is atmospheric is an understatement. The female characters, as well as Milan itself, were ethereal. A strange fog overwhelms everything—the characters, the city, the estate, Via Saterna.
It is told in two time periods. The first (1985-86) sets the foundation of the drama. The second is sometime in a dystopian future, undisclosed until the end. Milan is encased in an orange fog and the quality of life has deteriorated beyond what we know this city to be.
The novel opens with a suicide and travels full circle as the title suggests.
The plot:
As the book opens, the reader is introduced to an unusually designed circular home, Via Saterna. There is a party. The home has been redesigned by an ambitious architect , Dario, a married man with children, who has a love affair with the young, engaged woman who owns it. Her name is Lidia and she kills herself. The backstory is about the architect's innovative design and redesign of the house and of the love affair.
In the future time, which is the present in the story, Irene Sartori sells foreclosed, previously elegant houses at auction to wealthy foreigners who are unaware of the deteriorating climate in Italy. She is very successful in what she does and is hired to sell an ‘unsellable’ property in her hometown of Milan. Irene has a fraught relationship with her father, a renowned architect, has left her lover, and is contemplating having a baby through a fertility clinic. When she goes to work ito prepare the house for auction, she finds a young woman, also named Lidia, squatting. The relationship between the two women propels the story forward.
The structure is interesting in that one narrative goes forward in time, while the other is in the past. However, I found all the threads perplexing. The way the two time periods were presented, when there was a change to the future/present time, it was not delineated and it took me a page to realize where I was. It wasn’t until the end, that it became clear just where we were in the future and why.
Although the writing and otherworldly feel to the book was beautiful to read, I had to work to be interested. Irene was a complicated woman and I found her attraction to this young woman hard to believe. As I think about it, it seemed to me, there was too much complicated layering to tell a simple revenge story.
Many thanks to Netgalley and World Editions for the opportunity to read and honestly review this novel.
To say that this book is atmospheric is an understatement. The female characters, as well as Milan itself, were ethereal. A strange fog overwhelms everything—the characters, the city, the estate, Via Saterna.
It is told in two time periods. The first (1985-86) sets the foundation of the drama. The second is sometime in a dystopian future, undisclosed until the end. Milan is encased in an orange fog and the quality of life has deteriorated beyond what we know this city to be.
The novel opens with a suicide and travels full circle as the title suggests.
The plot:
As the book opens, the reader is introduced to an unusually designed circular home, Via Saterna. There is a party. The home has been redesigned by an ambitious architect , Dario, a married man with children, who has a love affair with the young, engaged woman who owns it. Her name is Lidia and she kills herself. The backstory is about the architect's innovative design and redesign of the house and of the love affair.
In the future time, which is the present in the story, Irene Sartori sells foreclosed, previously elegant houses at auction to wealthy foreigners who are unaware of the deteriorating climate in Italy. She is very successful in what she does and is hired to sell an ‘unsellable’ property in her hometown of Milan. Irene has a fraught relationship with her father, a renowned architect, has left her lover, and is contemplating having a baby through a fertility clinic. When she goes to work ito prepare the house for auction, she finds a young woman, also named Lidia, squatting. The relationship between the two women propels the story forward.
The structure is interesting in that one narrative goes forward in time, while the other is in the past. However, I found all the threads perplexing. The way the two time periods were presented, when there was a change to the future/present time, it was not delineated and it took me a page to realize where I was. It wasn’t until the end, that it became clear just where we were in the future and why.
Although the writing and otherworldly feel to the book was beautiful to read, I had to work to be interested. Irene was a complicated woman and I found her attraction to this young woman hard to believe. As I think about it, it seemed to me, there was too much complicated layering to tell a simple revenge story.
Many thanks to Netgalley and World Editions for the opportunity to read and honestly review this novel.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The book follows Irene, a 42-year-old Italian real estate agent who specialises in selling heritage houses to wealthy investors, just as the first signs of environmental collapse begin to affect the world around her. The story unfolds across two timelines: the book’s “present” (sometime in the 2030s), when Irene takes on the sale of an unusual house built by an architect in 1985, and the story of how that house came to be.
In 1985 we witness the architect’s growing romance with the house’s owner, a woman much younger than him. In the present, Irene grapples with ageing and loneliness while trying to decide whether she still wants children. Her life becomes further unsettled when she discovers a young woman squatting in the house she has been hired to sell.
The story is deeply engaging and intimate. The writing is intense and almost visceral. There is something almost architectural about the way the narrative is constructed. Irene’s personality, with all its layers, is exquisitely shaped. Each layer reveals something unexpected while remaining entirely consistent with what came before.
The ending perhaps should not have surprised me, but it absolutely did. I was genuinely taken aback, which rarely happens to me anymore. The author builds a narrative web that quietly draws the reader in, and the skill required to achieve that is remarkable.
The only element I liked less was the broader climate-crisis setting. It never felt as though it meaningfully contributed to the story itself. At times the prose also felt slightly too clinical and distant. It is difficult to explain precisely why, but the tone seemed less warm and empathetic than the subject matter might have warranted.
I would strongly recommend this book, especially to readers who enjoy stories with unexpected turns and those interested in the inner lives of successful single women in their forties, and the fragile worlds they build for themselves.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
In 1985 we witness the architect’s growing romance with the house’s owner, a woman much younger than him. In the present, Irene grapples with ageing and loneliness while trying to decide whether she still wants children. Her life becomes further unsettled when she discovers a young woman squatting in the house she has been hired to sell.
The story is deeply engaging and intimate. The writing is intense and almost visceral. There is something almost architectural about the way the narrative is constructed. Irene’s personality, with all its layers, is exquisitely shaped. Each layer reveals something unexpected while remaining entirely consistent with what came before.
The ending perhaps should not have surprised me, but it absolutely did. I was genuinely taken aback, which rarely happens to me anymore. The author builds a narrative web that quietly draws the reader in, and the skill required to achieve that is remarkable.
The only element I liked less was the broader climate-crisis setting. It never felt as though it meaningfully contributed to the story itself. At times the prose also felt slightly too clinical and distant. It is difficult to explain precisely why, but the tone seemed less warm and empathetic than the subject matter might have warranted.
I would strongly recommend this book, especially to readers who enjoy stories with unexpected turns and those interested in the inner lives of successful single women in their forties, and the fragile worlds they build for themselves.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The book alternates between two timelines – one set in the near future and the other in the 1980s – which progress in opposite directions chronologically.
In the storyline set in the near future, Milan is a city shrouded in dense fog, the result of climate change. There is social unrest prompting calls from some for construction of a wall to separate the crime-ridden parts of the city from the rest. All this gives an unsettling feel to the book, a suitable backdrop as it turns out to events in the house on Via Saterna. Irene has been commissioned to sell the house at auction by a lawyer named Ferrari. A specialist in selling heritage properties to wealthy investors, Irene is confident she can get a good price even given its unusual design. Ferrari is not so sure about its arcihtectural merits, adding ‘I would venture a certain amount of bad luck looms over this property.’
Irene sets about researching the history of the house and making an inventory of its contents. What she comes across both surprises and alarms her. And there are things that just don’t make sense. As she spends more time in the house, it starts to exert a strange pull on her.
The second storyline unfolds in reverse chronological order, gradually revealing the events that led up to the death in 1986 of Lidia, the young woman who once owned the house and commissioned its ambitious redesign. As the reader discovers, it’s a tragedy born out of a betrayal whose consequences will be played out in a most unexpected way decades later.
There are very many clever touches such as the fact the design of the house on Via Saterna is centred around a skylight through which the sun illuminates a silver basin filled with water at certain points of the day, whereas Milan is now shrouded in fog so dense that sunlight rarely penetrates it.
The Perfect Circle is a very cleverly plotted story with an ending that reflects the book’s title in a most satisfying way.
In the storyline set in the near future, Milan is a city shrouded in dense fog, the result of climate change. There is social unrest prompting calls from some for construction of a wall to separate the crime-ridden parts of the city from the rest. All this gives an unsettling feel to the book, a suitable backdrop as it turns out to events in the house on Via Saterna. Irene has been commissioned to sell the house at auction by a lawyer named Ferrari. A specialist in selling heritage properties to wealthy investors, Irene is confident she can get a good price even given its unusual design. Ferrari is not so sure about its arcihtectural merits, adding ‘I would venture a certain amount of bad luck looms over this property.’
Irene sets about researching the history of the house and making an inventory of its contents. What she comes across both surprises and alarms her. And there are things that just don’t make sense. As she spends more time in the house, it starts to exert a strange pull on her.
The second storyline unfolds in reverse chronological order, gradually revealing the events that led up to the death in 1986 of Lidia, the young woman who once owned the house and commissioned its ambitious redesign. As the reader discovers, it’s a tragedy born out of a betrayal whose consequences will be played out in a most unexpected way decades later.
There are very many clever touches such as the fact the design of the house on Via Saterna is centred around a skylight through which the sun illuminates a silver basin filled with water at certain points of the day, whereas Milan is now shrouded in fog so dense that sunlight rarely penetrates it.
The Perfect Circle is a very cleverly plotted story with an ending that reflects the book’s title in a most satisfying way.
March 30, 2026
“Is knowing that something else will survive us really the worst that can happen? Is being forgotten really the worst thing? And even if the end is irreversible this time, what difference does it make?”
.
I usually read two books on the go, one non-fiction and one fiction, with hopefully very different themes so as not to confuse my simple mind, but occasionally and serendipitously books do have a habit of merging in themes and concepts. There’s a moment in this book in which wildfires are approaching Milan and many other places, in a similarly terrifying way as outlined in the book Fire Weather by Johnny Vaillant.
.
It is hard to talk about this book because I think it is best to read with no prior knowledge. Petrucci has created a dying world in which cities are divided and the property market is thriving with international buyers. Because it’s set in the near future, it does feel sort of Black Mirror-esque; fortunately, it doesn’t reach the same levels of bleakness. There is affection and love in the book too, and despite the hinted-at world that hovers in the background, there is a level of warmth that I really connected to.
.
There is an absolutely fantastic book in this, and most of it is very good. There is an atmosphere to the book that feels wonderfully murky. I just feel there were perhaps one too many strands on the go that ultimately diluted the story; the ending felt somewhat rushed and unfulfilled. For all that, though, it is a very solid and, importantly, really intriguing read.
.
With thanks to world editions and netgalley for the advanced copy.
.
I usually read two books on the go, one non-fiction and one fiction, with hopefully very different themes so as not to confuse my simple mind, but occasionally and serendipitously books do have a habit of merging in themes and concepts. There’s a moment in this book in which wildfires are approaching Milan and many other places, in a similarly terrifying way as outlined in the book Fire Weather by Johnny Vaillant.
.
It is hard to talk about this book because I think it is best to read with no prior knowledge. Petrucci has created a dying world in which cities are divided and the property market is thriving with international buyers. Because it’s set in the near future, it does feel sort of Black Mirror-esque; fortunately, it doesn’t reach the same levels of bleakness. There is affection and love in the book too, and despite the hinted-at world that hovers in the background, there is a level of warmth that I really connected to.
.
There is an absolutely fantastic book in this, and most of it is very good. There is an atmosphere to the book that feels wonderfully murky. I just feel there were perhaps one too many strands on the go that ultimately diluted the story; the ending felt somewhat rushed and unfulfilled. For all that, though, it is a very solid and, importantly, really intriguing read.
.
With thanks to world editions and netgalley for the advanced copy.
May 1, 2026
English lit loves a linear narrative; so it always makes a reader sit up and take notice when a novel’s structure breaks that rule. This one does it very neatly, just as the clever cover hints: two timelines unwinding in opposite directions, one spiral turning clockwise, the other anti-clockwise. It's an excellent conceit, and provides wonderful tension.
Irene, the novel’s protagonist, is a very successful real-estate agent selling extremely high-end properties. When an attorney from her home town of Milan invites her to be his agent for what he implies is an unusual but unsellable house, she's instantly drawn to the challenge. And it is architecturally a remarkable house, she finds, with a rather sad story attached to it too, that she later discovers — and that the reader learns about backwards. The house also initially comes with a squatter. Untangling all of this proves to be far more arduous than Irene is prepared for.
Petrucci very convincingly makes this a haunted house story, complete with the very atmospheric setting of oppressive fog in a climate-changed, dystopian near-future. (There are cool fog glasses!) Although she ties up the haunted house loose end fairly neatly, many readers will prefer to keep their own counsel about that. It’s very pleasing how Petrucci sets the reader up this way, intentionally or not.
There are unsettling things in the novel, too, stemming from a somewhat poorly explored subplot about the character deciding to become a mother. It seems to fit the background climate change theme—hinting lightly at natalist/antinatalist sentiment, perhaps; or, again, perhaps not. It doesn’t feel like any of this advances the story, although it may help to increase the feeling of unreality; possibly, even, Petrucci wanted to flesh Irene out a little more. This all seems unnecessary, however: all of the novel’s other parts deliver the required uncanniness.
In all, this is a deliciously unsettling novel with an excellent climactic twist. Well worth your time.
Thanks to World Editions and NetGalley for the DRC.
Irene, the novel’s protagonist, is a very successful real-estate agent selling extremely high-end properties. When an attorney from her home town of Milan invites her to be his agent for what he implies is an unusual but unsellable house, she's instantly drawn to the challenge. And it is architecturally a remarkable house, she finds, with a rather sad story attached to it too, that she later discovers — and that the reader learns about backwards. The house also initially comes with a squatter. Untangling all of this proves to be far more arduous than Irene is prepared for.
Petrucci very convincingly makes this a haunted house story, complete with the very atmospheric setting of oppressive fog in a climate-changed, dystopian near-future. (There are cool fog glasses!) Although she ties up the haunted house loose end fairly neatly, many readers will prefer to keep their own counsel about that. It’s very pleasing how Petrucci sets the reader up this way, intentionally or not.
There are unsettling things in the novel, too, stemming from a somewhat poorly explored subplot about the character deciding to become a mother. It seems to fit the background climate change theme—hinting lightly at natalist/antinatalist sentiment, perhaps; or, again, perhaps not. It doesn’t feel like any of this advances the story, although it may help to increase the feeling of unreality; possibly, even, Petrucci wanted to flesh Irene out a little more. This all seems unnecessary, however: all of the novel’s other parts deliver the required uncanniness.
In all, this is a deliciously unsettling novel with an excellent climactic twist. Well worth your time.
Thanks to World Editions and NetGalley for the DRC.
March 26, 2026
All rich families are alike; every bankrupt family fails in its own way.
He wishes he could control time and stop before the mistake.
This book follows two women in the same house at very different times. We follow one woman in the near future, in a world slipping closer to environmental collapse, as she prepares the house to be sold at auction. Decades earlier, the other woman falls to her death in the house, and then we follow back into her past to see how she came to her fate. As the two timelines unspool in opposite directions, possible connections between the women are uncovered.
This was an odd, atmospheric book where half the time I was sure I knew what was going on and how everything tied together, and then the rest of the time was certain I was wrong. The fascination with the house over all else is really interesting in the ways it’s shown in both timelines. The way Irene is so unconcerned with, even oblivious to, the destruction that is happening around her as long as she gets pulls off a successful auction on the house; the carelessness of the wealthy who want to own a historical building as the rest of the city suffers; an architect who is determined to see his vision brought to life. I definitely think I’ll need to read this again, especially after the ending!
Thanks to netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
He wishes he could control time and stop before the mistake.
This book follows two women in the same house at very different times. We follow one woman in the near future, in a world slipping closer to environmental collapse, as she prepares the house to be sold at auction. Decades earlier, the other woman falls to her death in the house, and then we follow back into her past to see how she came to her fate. As the two timelines unspool in opposite directions, possible connections between the women are uncovered.
This was an odd, atmospheric book where half the time I was sure I knew what was going on and how everything tied together, and then the rest of the time was certain I was wrong. The fascination with the house over all else is really interesting in the ways it’s shown in both timelines. The way Irene is so unconcerned with, even oblivious to, the destruction that is happening around her as long as she gets pulls off a successful auction on the house; the carelessness of the wealthy who want to own a historical building as the rest of the city suffers; an architect who is determined to see his vision brought to life. I definitely think I’ll need to read this again, especially after the ending!
Thanks to netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
September 14, 2023
«Ti sei ricordato», Lidia parla a voce bassa. «Ma
¡'avevo detto solo di sfuggita, una volta...».
Dario incrocia le braccia dietro la schiena; suo padre diceva sempre che le mani dietro la schiena le mette solo chi ha qualcosa da nascondere, Dario non è certo di sapere a chi stia nascondendo e cosa, nell'ultimo periodo, negli ultimi anni tutta la sua vita è diventata un nascondiglio.
Certo, le parole di Lidia non sono passate inosservate, era solo il terzo incontro, il primo da soli, e lei aveva detto proprio così, «i riflessi dell'acqua»; Dario ora non riesce a ricordare il discorso nella sua interezza, ricorda solo il dettaglio, «i riflessi dell'acqua», la memoria che aveva fatto affiorare, i pomeriggi d'estate vicino al mare, i riflessi nel'acqua che gli sono stati così cari da adolescente, l'ipnosi dell'acqua cristallina sui fondi sabbiosi, a quella immagine, a ripetizione, ha legato un significato profondo di felicità, e Lidia con la sua risposta breve aveva riportato quella stessa felicità in superficie, intensa; allora doveva esserci un modo, si è detto Dario quello stesso giorno, di portare dentro una casa i riflessi dell'acqua. (p. 125)
¡'avevo detto solo di sfuggita, una volta...».
Dario incrocia le braccia dietro la schiena; suo padre diceva sempre che le mani dietro la schiena le mette solo chi ha qualcosa da nascondere, Dario non è certo di sapere a chi stia nascondendo e cosa, nell'ultimo periodo, negli ultimi anni tutta la sua vita è diventata un nascondiglio.
Certo, le parole di Lidia non sono passate inosservate, era solo il terzo incontro, il primo da soli, e lei aveva detto proprio così, «i riflessi dell'acqua»; Dario ora non riesce a ricordare il discorso nella sua interezza, ricorda solo il dettaglio, «i riflessi dell'acqua», la memoria che aveva fatto affiorare, i pomeriggi d'estate vicino al mare, i riflessi nel'acqua che gli sono stati così cari da adolescente, l'ipnosi dell'acqua cristallina sui fondi sabbiosi, a quella immagine, a ripetizione, ha legato un significato profondo di felicità, e Lidia con la sua risposta breve aveva riportato quella stessa felicità in superficie, intensa; allora doveva esserci un modo, si è detto Dario quello stesso giorno, di portare dentro una casa i riflessi dell'acqua. (p. 125)
October 8, 2023
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
[Davvero il peggio che può accadere è che qualcos’altro ci sopravviva? Davvero il peggio è essere dimenticati? E anche se questa volta la fine è irreversibile, qual è la differenza? Ricordarmi che devo sparire è il mio benessere più profondo, come certi video del mare quando è calmo, sono proprio così: unica e distesa]
Bravissima C. Petrucci!!!🤩
Ancora così giovane, spero per lei un futuro ricco di riconoscimenti letterari!
Avevo amato L'esercizio e anche quest'ultimo non è da meno.
Lei è davvero padrona di una trama che ricuce, ribalta, risana e ti accompagna sempre in un vortice altanelante di emozioni che spaziano dall' incomprensibile sensazione di aver capito poco all'aver inteso tutto, con uno squarcio che si fende sul buio.
Non ho compreso molto il finale o forse sì.
O, meglio, l'avrei voluto diverso, non so.
[Davvero il peggio che può accadere è che qualcos’altro ci sopravviva? Davvero il peggio è essere dimenticati? E anche se questa volta la fine è irreversibile, qual è la differenza? Ricordarmi che devo sparire è il mio benessere più profondo, come certi video del mare quando è calmo, sono proprio così: unica e distesa]
Bravissima C. Petrucci!!!🤩
Ancora così giovane, spero per lei un futuro ricco di riconoscimenti letterari!
Avevo amato L'esercizio e anche quest'ultimo non è da meno.
Lei è davvero padrona di una trama che ricuce, ribalta, risana e ti accompagna sempre in un vortice altanelante di emozioni che spaziano dall' incomprensibile sensazione di aver capito poco all'aver inteso tutto, con uno squarcio che si fende sul buio.
Non ho compreso molto il finale o forse sì.
O, meglio, l'avrei voluto diverso, non so.
February 23, 2026
The Perfect Circle by Italian author Claudia Petrucci reads like an endless downwards spiral that makes us question: “how did it come to this?”
Whilst reading this novel which is set in Italy, I was reminiscing on lunching in Roma this time last year, trying to stare through the buildings from my spot on a piazza. Nosing a glass of riesling and nibbling absentmindedly on some cheese, I couldn’t stop wondering what was behind the shuttered windows left ajar to let in the height of the midday sun; watching the shadows grow on the symmetrical archways, cut up by iron bars; sitting on the stoop of grand wooden doors that looked as heavy and ancient as marble. That is the appeal of Rome: crooked cobblestones and curiosity. At home, cheese boards don’t quite feel like this. Here, in the afternoon sun, reading Irene’s story begin in Rome felt like my own round circle moment, perfected by memories of the promise of a riposo.
But this book was not a respite. I read it in the very early hours of the morning before another scorching hot day in Perth, where the heat keeps you indoors and unable to nap unless the aircon is assaulting you in the face. A mixture of dystopia, drama, intrigue, mystery was achieved through eerie and spacial writing that granted the reader the detachment of being a bystander alongside the intensity of being a witness, like watching a fire break out and feeling the heat on your face. The artful prose of Petrucci’s writing created a story that shocked me into contemplating a near-future version of Milan shrouded in fog, devoid of sunlight because of the festering effects of climate change. Of an alternate (but perhaps very real) reality where the next time I visited my family in Rome, I would be able to see behind those closed doors in exchange of never seeing the sun again.
In The Perfect Circle, readers are not given any answers as to how the world has come to be like this, but told a story of how regret, betrayal, greed and selfishness linger in physical spaces; the climate crisis’ impact on Italy is superimposed to a smaller scale in the round house on Via Saterna, Milan that sports a central skylight designed to shine three floors down. But Milan is shrouded in a chthonic, orange fog, and instead, the now useless skylight is the centre of a deeper narrative about time, death and repetition
What of a time when you could see the sun through the skylight? Unfortunately, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Until there is no sun, no home, no point of buying houses in darkness. Two narratives about two women separated by time, but connected by the house, alternate and circle each other throughout the novel. Eventually, like a spiral, the two stories converge in the middle.
Irene, a real estate agent based in Rome, returns to Milan when she is commissioned to sell a house on Via Saterna, a Palladian square housing a perfect circle at its centre. To avoid the scrutiny of her architect father, whom questions the morality of selling cultural patrimony to foreign bidders, Irene busies herself by avoiding her not-boyfriend in Rome, contemplating motherhood in this world, and scouring the house from top to bottom to achieve the impossible feat of selling it.
My curiosity sitting on the piazza is satisfied here, where Irene’s discoveries are told in chronological order, and the unfolding tale of Lidia, the house’s previous occupant, is told in reverse. The inverted narrative reveals what is behind the closed doors of the piazza: how and by whom the house on Via Saterna was built, and the mystery behind its odd layout. If the skylight wasn’t rendered useless by a sunless sky, it would have shined on the spot where Lidia fell to her death.
The entire narrative and composition of Petrucci’s writing is concentric. I was thoroughly impressed with how every single theme was added to this elusive whirlpool of mystery. The book begins with Irene’s return and Lidia’s death, and it transpires with the skylight as the radius closes in, further and further, like fog, fire and water; like a planet heating up; like the blaring quiet of an abandoned house. Except, in a crisis like this, abandoning Earth is not an option. So what of Via Saterna?
“The future is frightening without a home.”
Thank you to the publisher, World Editions, for providing me with an advanced reader copy!
Whilst reading this novel which is set in Italy, I was reminiscing on lunching in Roma this time last year, trying to stare through the buildings from my spot on a piazza. Nosing a glass of riesling and nibbling absentmindedly on some cheese, I couldn’t stop wondering what was behind the shuttered windows left ajar to let in the height of the midday sun; watching the shadows grow on the symmetrical archways, cut up by iron bars; sitting on the stoop of grand wooden doors that looked as heavy and ancient as marble. That is the appeal of Rome: crooked cobblestones and curiosity. At home, cheese boards don’t quite feel like this. Here, in the afternoon sun, reading Irene’s story begin in Rome felt like my own round circle moment, perfected by memories of the promise of a riposo.
But this book was not a respite. I read it in the very early hours of the morning before another scorching hot day in Perth, where the heat keeps you indoors and unable to nap unless the aircon is assaulting you in the face. A mixture of dystopia, drama, intrigue, mystery was achieved through eerie and spacial writing that granted the reader the detachment of being a bystander alongside the intensity of being a witness, like watching a fire break out and feeling the heat on your face. The artful prose of Petrucci’s writing created a story that shocked me into contemplating a near-future version of Milan shrouded in fog, devoid of sunlight because of the festering effects of climate change. Of an alternate (but perhaps very real) reality where the next time I visited my family in Rome, I would be able to see behind those closed doors in exchange of never seeing the sun again.
In The Perfect Circle, readers are not given any answers as to how the world has come to be like this, but told a story of how regret, betrayal, greed and selfishness linger in physical spaces; the climate crisis’ impact on Italy is superimposed to a smaller scale in the round house on Via Saterna, Milan that sports a central skylight designed to shine three floors down. But Milan is shrouded in a chthonic, orange fog, and instead, the now useless skylight is the centre of a deeper narrative about time, death and repetition
What of a time when you could see the sun through the skylight? Unfortunately, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Until there is no sun, no home, no point of buying houses in darkness. Two narratives about two women separated by time, but connected by the house, alternate and circle each other throughout the novel. Eventually, like a spiral, the two stories converge in the middle.
Irene, a real estate agent based in Rome, returns to Milan when she is commissioned to sell a house on Via Saterna, a Palladian square housing a perfect circle at its centre. To avoid the scrutiny of her architect father, whom questions the morality of selling cultural patrimony to foreign bidders, Irene busies herself by avoiding her not-boyfriend in Rome, contemplating motherhood in this world, and scouring the house from top to bottom to achieve the impossible feat of selling it.
My curiosity sitting on the piazza is satisfied here, where Irene’s discoveries are told in chronological order, and the unfolding tale of Lidia, the house’s previous occupant, is told in reverse. The inverted narrative reveals what is behind the closed doors of the piazza: how and by whom the house on Via Saterna was built, and the mystery behind its odd layout. If the skylight wasn’t rendered useless by a sunless sky, it would have shined on the spot where Lidia fell to her death.
The entire narrative and composition of Petrucci’s writing is concentric. I was thoroughly impressed with how every single theme was added to this elusive whirlpool of mystery. The book begins with Irene’s return and Lidia’s death, and it transpires with the skylight as the radius closes in, further and further, like fog, fire and water; like a planet heating up; like the blaring quiet of an abandoned house. Except, in a crisis like this, abandoning Earth is not an option. So what of Via Saterna?
“The future is frightening without a home.”
Thank you to the publisher, World Editions, for providing me with an advanced reader copy!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A literary fiction tale, The Perfect Circle (2026) by Claudia Petrucci, is translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel. A dual-timeline narrative, it depicts events in 1985 and present-day Rome. Irene Sartori is a real estate broker tasked with selling a deceased estate villa, in Milan. The mansion, built in 1985, has a tragic history, and its unusual design and décor, make it difficult to sell. Irene discovers Lidia, a student staying in the round house, as she prepares to auction the property. An interesting mix of a novel, with its dystopian aspects, friendship and subtle underlying tension, which switches back and forth in time. Overall, it's an enjoyable enough character story with an interesting, ambiguous twist of a finale, with a three star read rating. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without any inducement.
June 13, 2023
Brava la Petrucci a raccontare le storie. Mi era già piaciuta molto con il precedente L'esercizio e mi è piaciuta pure. È una scrittrice di trama, nel senso che si inventa delle storie, e se le inventa bene, e stanno in piedi e, insomma, è capace di chiudere il cerchio. Quindi ha scritto una storia intrigante, che fila, che è ben raccontata e che ti porta a voler sapere come va a finire. Quindi?
Quindi è un bel libro se si cerca un modo intelligente di passare il tempo accompagnati da una storia, e va bene. Io nella letteratura cerco anche altro, a volte delle risposte, qualche altra delle domande, a volte niente se non un bell'aggettivo e un bel periodo. Ma questo è un problema mio. Se cercate una buona storia, lei l'ha trovata.
Quindi è un bel libro se si cerca un modo intelligente di passare il tempo accompagnati da una storia, e va bene. Io nella letteratura cerco anche altro, a volte delle risposte, qualche altra delle domande, a volte niente se non un bell'aggettivo e un bel periodo. Ma questo è un problema mio. Se cercate una buona storia, lei l'ha trovata.
Read
August 12, 2025struttura del libro perfetta, mi è piaciuto come dove e quando fosse ambientato (no spoiler perché si scopre pian piano). questo tipo di scrittura leggera e scarna si presta al servizio della trama, ma in alcuni punti (soprattutto iniziali) mi è sembrata poco levigata (vedi l'uso del termine "guadagna", la tendenza all' enumerazione cronachistica). la storia è appassionante anche se in alcuni punti rallenta, quasi volesse durare più a lungo. in ogni caso io ho il kink delle strutture narrative e questa è pazzesca, oltretutto riflette la struttura della casa in cui si svolge la storia, e il titolo. non convinto da alcune scelte narrative sul finale ma alla fine per me è un bel libro (pesa soprattutto la struttura e l'ambizione, bisogna essere ambiziose quando si scrive e petrucci lo è)
August 2, 2023
Romanzone! Claudia Petrucci è una penna da tener d’occhio. La cosa interessante è anche la struttura del romanzo, che si snoda su due livelli: da un lato il 1986-1985 e dall’altro la fine degli anni Venti del Duemila. Il primo filone inizia dalla fine e finisce con l’inizio, che coincide con la fine lineare del secondo filone, costituendo, così, il cerchio perfetto del titolo, dove delle vendette si compiono, ma forse tutto può ricominciare da capo. Petrucci, inoltre, racconta il tutto mescolando vari generi letterari - un po’ climate fiction, un po’ distopico, a volte thriller, a volte gotico - dimostrando come si possano affrontare temi triti e ritriti in maniera inedita e originale.
December 21, 2025
Una casa dall'architettetura particolare, concentrica, edificazione di un futuro che nasconde un'ombra dietro la sua luce scintillante. Due donne impegnate in un centripeto inseguimento di affettività separate dalla tirannia del tempo.
Claudia Petrucci, con questo secondo romanzo torna a parlare della manipolazione e della sua abilità di nascondersi dietro ad un amore di facciata. Nella cornice di una Milano tuturistica (ma non troppo) perennemente circondata da una nebbia tossica, l'autrice costruisce una trama che accerchia molte tematiche a volte senza approfondirle meritatamente.
La scrittura sempre molto pulita, precisa, intima e comunicativa si circonda di personaggi magnetici sapientemente caratterizzati e distribuiti su due linee temporali che congiungono nel colpo di scena finale.
Nelle ultime pagine si percepisce infatti un senso di ripartenza, di congiungimento, tant'è che potrebbero essere considerati preludio del primo capitolo, come una storia che ci gira su se stessa.
Un romanzo solido e appassionate che germoglia dalla figura della dimora: ora più che mai frutto di instabilita nella vita delle persone.
Claudia Petrucci, con questo secondo romanzo torna a parlare della manipolazione e della sua abilità di nascondersi dietro ad un amore di facciata. Nella cornice di una Milano tuturistica (ma non troppo) perennemente circondata da una nebbia tossica, l'autrice costruisce una trama che accerchia molte tematiche a volte senza approfondirle meritatamente.
La scrittura sempre molto pulita, precisa, intima e comunicativa si circonda di personaggi magnetici sapientemente caratterizzati e distribuiti su due linee temporali che congiungono nel colpo di scena finale.
Nelle ultime pagine si percepisce infatti un senso di ripartenza, di congiungimento, tant'è che potrebbero essere considerati preludio del primo capitolo, come una storia che ci gira su se stessa.
Un romanzo solido e appassionate che germoglia dalla figura della dimora: ora più che mai frutto di instabilita nella vita delle persone.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This intriguing and atmospheric novel centres on a mysterious house in Milan and the secrets hidden within its unusual design. The story follows Irene Sartori, a real-estate agent who specialises in selling historic Italian properties to wealthy international buyers. When she is asked to find a buyer for a strange, long-unsold mansion, she becomes drawn into the building’s unsettling history. As Irene investigates the property and its past, another narrative slowly emerges from decades earlier, involving a tragic death and a complicated love affair linked to the house. Decades earlier, a young woman named Lidia died after falling down the stairwell of the same house, ending a secret relationship with an ambitious architect. All this is set against climate change which has resulted in the city being cloaked in a strange orange case, adding to the unsettling atmosphere. The novel moves cleverly between the two timelines, but although I was intrigued by the premise at the start, by the end I was getting confused and found the plot more and more unconvincing. Intriguing and atmospheric, yes, but overall it didn’t work for me.
April 5, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This was a captivating read. I loved a lot about this book, the dystopian Milan, touching on climate change, the circular pattern of the story unfolding, and the satisfying revenge plot that kept you guessing until the end. Things really came full (perfect) circle. What I didn’t like is that I wanted more details and answers. I’m pretty sure that was the point though, to leave certain things vague and up for interpretation. Overall I really enjoyed this one.
This was a captivating read. I loved a lot about this book, the dystopian Milan, touching on climate change, the circular pattern of the story unfolding, and the satisfying revenge plot that kept you guessing until the end. Things really came full (perfect) circle. What I didn’t like is that I wanted more details and answers. I’m pretty sure that was the point though, to leave certain things vague and up for interpretation. Overall I really enjoyed this one.
August 12, 2026
I was glued to this and read it in a few hours, and as magic as it is, and as appealing and empathetic as Irene is, the ending is disappearing.
Still, it is fully alive and wonderfully narrated so don’t let a fall on the final hurdle stop you feon enjoying the rhythm of language, curious twists and turns, and following the daily decisions of two women so far apart in generations and circumstances.
Still, it is fully alive and wonderfully narrated so don’t let a fall on the final hurdle stop you feon enjoying the rhythm of language, curious twists and turns, and following the daily decisions of two women so far apart in generations and circumstances.
July 4, 2023
Un bel romanzo di trama con un soggetto originale che tiene bene tutti i fili.
Scrittura molto elegante, un po’ lento in certe parti, mi è piaciuto ma non mi ha convinta del tutto.
Forse cercavo più introspezione psicologica, più uno scavo sui personaggi (la storia d’amore tra Lidia e Dario per esempio non è per niente coinvolgente) invece è solo l’intreccio a far da padrone.
Scrittura molto elegante, un po’ lento in certe parti, mi è piaciuto ma non mi ha convinta del tutto.
Forse cercavo più introspezione psicologica, più uno scavo sui personaggi (la storia d’amore tra Lidia e Dario per esempio non è per niente coinvolgente) invece è solo l’intreccio a far da padrone.
October 19, 2023
Ambientato nella Milano che tanti di noi temono ci attenda nel prossimo futuro, questo romanzo ruota intorno alla storia di una casa, che è insieme fulcro e metafora della narrazione stessa; infatti, proprio come l’originale edificio, tutto è circolare e il racconto termina dove tutto ha avuto inizio, chiudendo il cerchio.
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