Little Death, A

In a tripping and absorbing style, award-winning Brazilian writer Claudia Lage asks readers to gaze into the dark side of love and desire, and ultimately even to sympathize with her flawed hero and heroine. A Little Death is both an unconventional love story and a raw, visceral tale that explores the journey to adulthood in all its complexity and hilarity.

The girl has always felt a depthless angst, a disquieting hunger that she can neither explain nor ignore. Even as a child she finds herself riveted and enlivened by the grotesque: watching with lurid fascination as the family’s maid slaughters chickens in their backyard. She finds her soul mate when she meets the boy, moments after he’s struck a bird dead with his slingshot. Though it will take the two lovers years to work their way back to each other, their connection never dampens and their mutual pull toward the macabre only grows with time—with possible disastrous results.