A Molotov cocktail flung at the face of the French establishment, a work of dazzling, highly controlled fury. A triumph New York TimesA memoir of lost adolescence elegant, focused, fluidly translated GuardianRapier-sharp, written with restraint, elegance and brevity and beautifully translated The TimesA gut-punch of a memoir with prose that cuts like a knife. Springora never loses sight of the teenage girl at the centre of her story even as she lays bare a cultures hypocrisies and failures.