A dark, raw coming of age story set in Italy in the 1990s, The Lake's Water is Never Sweet is the story of Gaia, an isolated teen who is dealing with complicated family legacy and poverty.

Guilia Caminito evokes such a strong sense of place in this novel that I felt a bit voyeuristic, looking in on Gaia's most intimate thoughts and feelings. Navigating her family's move from Rome to a lakeside village, Gaia must contend with coming into who she is and deciding which obligations she can hold up. Sad but beautifully written, this is a story that will stay with me for a long time.

I was fortunate enough to get the chance to tandem read the print version with the audio version and I loved both of them.

The Lake’s Water Is Never Sweet offers an unflinching look at class, adolescence, and the quiet violence of unmet expectations. This story follows Gaia, a sharp, angry teenager navigating poverty, displacement, and the claustrophobic weight of family obligation. Told in first person, Gaia’s voice is bracingly honest yet often abrasive.

On the surface is the fraught relationship between Gaia and her mother Antonia, a woman marked by resilience and quiet control. Their dynamic is tense, antagonistic, and painfully believable. Friendships, too, are shaped as much by insecurity and rivalry as by affection; an emotional complex that is specific to teenage uncertainty.

The prose is incisive, clear-eyed in its portrayal of social and personal stagnation. While the narrative dips in momentum mid-way, it opens and closes definitively. This is not a redemptive coming-of-age story, but rather a bleak, emotionally honest reflection of adolescence shaped by constraint, rage, and unspoken grief.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Real Rating: 4.5* of fiveGaia narrates this story to us, in all her adolescent angst, pain, confusion, bewilderment...all the usual things an adolescent in the middle of the utterly mystifying process of finding out who she is, what she wants, how she's going to set about getting it, feels.

That does not sound like a book I'd like very much. And yet you see those four stars up there. Where'd they come from?

From a scaffolding that wasn't safe. From a stable that showed Gaia she didn't have the power to heal the wounds betrayal leaves. From a bag of rotting lemons, from a carnival shooting game, from texts that can't be answered...from, in other words, life as it is lived. Piece by piece.

Watching in real-time someone coming of age is *maddening* because you're helpless. Reading a novel about a young woman becoming herself is both faster and friendlier on the patience. Gaia's got a hard row to hoe in this life, her entire family's very badly broken in real, honest ways. That leaves her to do what she can with what she's got, and that is never enough. Nothing is ever enough when you're working on, working out, yourself. You paste together the bits you can find, then paper over the holes and cracks and voids. It is how humans have always done it, don't be fooled by fools telling you it used to be easier, it was better when..."when" is the slipperiest word in English. "When" never comes, never came, isn't coming, got lost. "When" immigrated from Old Frisia, from Proto-Indo-Europe whatever wherever whenever that happened. Who needs "when" because we have "now."

And "now" is Gaia's native land.

It was clear to me the story here was not purely foundationally fiction. The author says so in her last word on the subject. She's Gaia; other girls from her past were Iris and Agata. It doesn't help, particularly, to know that but it does make me trust the author more. She's honest; she wrote a novel about realness by using reality, and one person's reality is never, ever enough...see above...for a whole novel. It's too much and never enough, like Mary Trump says. We're not enough for fiction; we're too much for Life. It's a puzzlement, remember Yul Brynner talking those lines on pitch? And no king like The King and I ever spoke greater sooth. Imagine not feeling puzzled! Imagine feeling so sure of yourself that you, a teen anarchist boy, run your family! Imagine how *little* you feel in the face of Life, and you power through anyway, and rotten-souled bastards take your life, your living, your family's home.

Imagine.

And yet here we are. Absolutely in the same place we were, only without instead of with.

Read The Lake's Water Is Never Sweet by Giulia Caminito as translated by Hope Campbell Gustafson and imagine.

Thank you Netgalley & Spiegel & Grau for an eARC ♥️♥️♥️

This isn’t just a book—it’s an experience♥️. Reading it feels like overhearing someone’s most private thoughts, the kind you weren’t meant to hear but can’t stop listening to.
Gaia, the teenage girl at the heart of the story, isn’t some polished literary heroine. She’s messy, angry, vulnerable, and so real I kept forgetting she wasn’t someone I actually knew.
Her family:
The mom who loves you but doesn’t understand you, the dad who’s physically there but emotionally checked out, the brother who’s off doing his own reckless thing—it’s all so painfully recognizable. Caminito writes these relationships without judgment, letting them be as complicated and contradictory as real families are. 💔

And the writing
It’s not showy or pretentious, just devastatingly precise. She’ll drop a single line about the way light falls on a lake or the weight of unsaid words between people, and suddenly you’re gutted. The whole book hums with this quiet intensity, like a tension you can’t shake.
What I love most is that it doesn’t tie things up neatly. Life isn’t like that, and neither is Gaia’s story. She makes mistakes, she hurts people, she gets hurt, and none of it gets magically fixed. It’s just her, figuring it out as she goes—which is all any of us are really doing, right?
If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t belong, if your family drives you crazy but you’d still take a bullet for them, if you’ve ever been so angry or lost you didn’t know what to do with yourself—read this. It’s brutal and beautiful at the same time💔

Fantastic coming of age story set in and around Rome.

There are certain memories from growing up that take up more space in your mind and this mirrored that experience by having some scenes shine very brightly.

Near the start she takes part in a shooting game at a carnival and at this point I knew I would enjoy this book.

There is also a scene near the end around the kitchen table with her mother which was so true and heartbreaking.

But my favourite part was when she is trying to catch a train with her first boyfriend. I had so many feelings about that and it was written so evocatively.

There were many great lines, but one that encapsulated growing up from so many different angles. “My mother wants to extend her dominion from my childhood into my adulthood”.

In the 1990s, Gaia’s family moves from the neglected peripheries of Rome to an idyllic lakeside town twenty miles away, in search of a new life that will lift them out of poverty. Each of them bears their own scars: Gaia’s strong-willed mother is fiercely determined to secure a better future for her children at any cost; her father, a once proud man, now suffers in bitter silence after a devastating accident; her anarchist older brother rebels against the political apathy he sees at home; and her young twin brothers wordlessly bear witness to a family in decay.

I just couldn’t get going with this story. It was disjointed and just doesn’t flow for me despite a couple of attempts. I gave up about a third of the way through. Maybe it’s the writing style or the translation. Or maybe it’s just me. It didn’t work.

A chaotic, awkward coming of age story - exactly what that age is about! Gaia is nearly friendless, has red hair that stands out, uncomfortable in her own skin. Perhaps the start of an 'ugly duckling' story, she has anger and bitterness. The location of this story is set in several locations in and around Rome and her family moves from aparment to apartment, all in downtrodden areas. Her father fell off of a scaffolding on a work site and was left paralyzed from the waist down, so he can no longer work. Her mother is relentless - pushing her to academic excellence, pursuing stable housing for her family - Gaia, an older brother, younger twin brothers, her father. This fall into economic hardship takes its emotional toll on Gaia, and her story is often difficult to read. The characters get under your skin as the story progresses and the writing is a bit disjointed, which feels to me to set the correct tone. It's a peak into the mind of a confused teen who feels like an outsider in her own body.

This ARC was provided by NetGalley and the publisher, the opinions expressed herein are strictly my own.

An Italian coming of age story set in a housing project not the sun-kissed Italy we so often read about. Gaia is an angry teen. And angsty. She's got a lot to be angry about starting with the fact that she moved down the economic ladder and is being bullied. She's a relatable character but you might not like her. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. While this wasn't really for me I admired the writing. Over to others.

Thank you netGalley, Giulia Caminito, and Spiegel and Grau for this eARC!

I was unsure at the start of this novel as the narrative was not always linear and there was a lot of jumping from thought to thought, however, as I kept reading, I was sucked in to the brain of Gaia and the writing style began to make perfect sense. This novel follows Gaia and her family from childhood to early adulthood as she navigates their societal status, class, and her overall place in Rome and its surrounding areas. Caminito used details from her own life and that of her childhood friend (reimagined as Iris) and you can really feel the honest emotions in her words. Every secondary character played a part in the creation of Gaia's final self, especially her mother who I left this book feeling like she wanted to do her best as a mother but did not know how to raise a daughter in the 2000s. Gaia had no emotional regulation and was not supported for her intelligence and abilities (other than by previously mentioned, and truly the heart of the novel, Iris). She deals with such intense lows and they all swell in to such a magnificent and explosive anger and sadness, it was all so palpable in the words.

I do not have too many criticisms other than that the earliest chapters took some time to get used to re: formatting. Overall, I really enjoyed the first translation of Caminito's work and I think she will have great success outside of Italy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Spiegal & Grau for this advance readers copy, in exchange for an honest review. This book is both a coming of age story and a family saga, following our main character Gaia and her family in 1990’s Italy. This story largely follows Gaia’s life from childhood to her teen years as she navigates complex family relationships, poverty, moving multiple times, challenging friendships and relationships, etc.

This style of book reminded me of Elena Ferrante’s writing and the content was reminiscent of the Neapolitan Novels. I do think this novel had a bit more of a stream of consciousness style interspersed with the plot elements and the writing was a bit more flowery. There were times when I wished the plot would pick up the pace a bit but, the narrator’s languid and stylistic prose contributed to a tense, tight atmosphere in the book. This worked well for the subject matter at hand and the clear themes of feminine rage that underlined the entire story. One of the aspects of Gaia’s personality that I most enjoyed was watching her rage flourish over time, as she navigated both new experiences and the consequences of her actions. She was an interesting character to watch and I had to keep reading to know how her story turned out. Overall, I did like this book and think that fans of Ferrante and fans of feminine coming of age stories would enjoy this one.

The Lake’s Water is Never Sweet by Giulia Caminito
Publication Date: July 7/25
Translated by Hope Campbell Gustafson

A powerful family saga about the struggle to escape poverty and find stability in a world that offers few safe harbours. Set in 1990’s Italy, the story follows a family that moves from the outskirts of Rome to an idyllic lakeside town, hoping for a fresh start. But relocation comes with its own set of issues and problems, and the wounds and scars they carry persist.

The narrator, Gaia, a teenager, has never truly fit in. Socially isolated and emotionally guarded Gaia views friendship as something treacherous and allusive. Her home life is marked by volatility- a fiery and dominating mother bent on realizing the future she never had through that her children; a father broken by a workplace accident leaving him paralyzed; and a rebellious older brother fueled by his parents political apathy.

Gaia is not an easy character to love, filled with rage, self loathing and resentment. Her life feels like a relentless struggle to belong, to meet impossible expectations and to break free of the limitations of her environment. Her friendships emerge through shared circumstance rather than genuine connection and her narrative voice ripples with seething and self loathing.

This is a coming of age novel that refuses sentimentality. It explores the loneliness of disconnection, the ache of not belonging, and the fine line between rage and despair. An unflinching depiction of a young woman lashing out at the world that has no room for her - raw, painful and unforgettable.

(only giving a star rating bc I have no other choice on NG)
I really wanted to love this, but it just wasn't for me. I truly believe it was a "me thing". This has the makings of a book I'd love, and that's not a backhanded compliment. It literally HAS all of the things, so the only variable left is—me.

My best guess is that the prose is waay to lyrical for me. I'm certain I've read more lyrical writing than this though and come away pleased.
The pub was kind enough to provide me w the ALC as well. As someone who has loved a book on audio that in print didn't seem to be for me, I went in as openminded as possible... This just doesn't seem to be for me.

I'm willing to give Caminito's work another chance though. In fact I look forward to doing so!

Thank you bunches to Giulia Caminito, Carlotta Brentan, Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks, Spiegel & Grau, Schuler Books Okemos & NetGalley for the ALC, DRC & physical ARC #gifted as a #SchulerBooksAmbassador perk!

3.5⭐️ thank you NetGalley for the arc!

This debut follows a teenage girl, Gaia, as her family moves to a lakeside town from Rome's impoverished outskirts. As we follow Gaia through her adolescent, we witness her dysfunctional family, fragile friendships, female rage, and the realities of privilege.

I read this novel at the perfect time with Lorde’s album release. This book really reminded me of her track Favourite Daughter. I was invested in Gaia and her family. I found her striving for perfection in school to please her mother and find a way out of the poverty she grew up in really interesting. She’s a complex character, and the author did a great job capturing her anger, loneliness, and insecurities. Watching Gaia navigate her friendships, education, relationships, and family was equally compelling. I also felt for the mom, who was doing whatever she could to survive and keep her kids from repeating her mistakes, even though that hardened her.

The reason I rated this 3.5 stars was because there were weird time jumps and moments where I became less interested... If you’re missing the Neapolitan Novels, you’ll probably enjoy this!

The Lakes Water is Never Sweet fell very flat for me. I was intrigued from the opening of the novel. It’s the 1990’s in Rome, a strong mom fighting to obtain housing for her kids and her husband who was paralyzed in a work accident. I am not sure if it was the translation or the arc, but the novel was very very disjointed. The middle section dragged and was so boring. All of the characters felt very flat and one dimensional. I could not connect with the story. The ending completely confused me and felt glossed over. Gaia’s mental stability??? Ugh I am very disappointed this wasnt 5 star read for me because I love Ferrante and Di Pietrantonio. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

There’s this feeling a book can give you that I’m at a loss for an appropriate name for but affects you in some kind of moving way. This book is one of those. It’s uncomfortable, it’s raw, it’s intricate. The characters so well developed and so knowable. The details, the author’s choice of words and style of writing all superb. Think Rome, outside lake town, adolescence, life’s grips, friendship, family dynamics, adventures, milestones. I am very highly recommending this!

The Lake's Water is Never Sweet is beautifully written coming-of-age story set in 1990's Italy. I found the focus on female rage (in all its forms) to be the most enticing part of this story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the advanced copy! All thoughts are my own:

a very good portrait of a family from poverty and the effects of that poverty in their relationships among themselves and peers.

An English-language debut, it was written quite well and flowed nicely. I thought the novel captured the essence of a lifestyle of poverty pretty well and. the emotions that come with that.

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced netgalley copy

The Lakes Water is Never Sweet is an Italian coming of age story that takes place in the 90s and the aughts. It follows a young girl growing up impoverished in Rome with a mother who's determined to help her family prosper despite her husband's disability and their poverty.

They move to a rural lakeside town where most of the story takes place, and we follow our main character as she learns about life, violence, friendships, family and disappointments. The writing in this book is beautiful and you can really imagine yourself as an Italian teenager spending your summer at the lake and riding mopeds in the dark. There is a lot of pain and sadness but also a lot of hope and resilience. I'm happy I got a chance to read this and hoping more of the author's books will be translated to English!

“In her English-language debut, award-winning Italian novelist Giulia Caminito follows a teenage girl as her family transitions from Rome’s impoverished outskirts to a fraught new beginning in a tranquil lakeside town, capturing the disillusionment, loneliness, and rage that defined a generation..”

Four stars

I found this book quite sad. Gaia grows up in poverty with her family, first in Rome, then moving to a town in the suburbs where her mother Antonia hopes they will have a better life. The family is ruled by Antonia, who does everything she can to improve their lives, but doesn't show any love or affection towards her children. This is the story of Gaia's teenage years, her friendships, and her unrelenting studying to try and improve her future and please her mother.
It's grim, but the writing and desciptions are excellent, which kept me reading.