A very short but powerful read that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since I finished it. I have already recommended it to all of my reader friends

This is definitely making my favourite books of the year. It is beautifully written, with a strong and memorable character voice, thought-provoking reflections on morality, a heartwarming relationship which develops across the book, and a feeling of anxiety which looms throughout. It made me smile, made me cry, and made a massive impact despite only being 160 pages long.

The book follows Zeno, a fifteen-year-old boy who is in a juvenile prison for murder after a run-in with a rival gang. The story is told from his perspective, as he writes to his prison school teacher for a creative writing assignment.

It’s a book about survival, wanting a better life, and trying to be positive despite difficult circumstances. There’s something so impactful about a character writing directly to someone else, and I enjoyed Zeno’s meandering thoughts about his past and dreams for the future. I really felt for him as he navigated life in prison and attempted to stay hopeful, whilst also reflecting on the experiences that led to his imprisonment.

If you’re looking for a short book that packs a punch, then this needs adding to your tbr! Thank you so much to Pushkin Press for the NetGalley arc.

There’s something incredibly special about a book that pulls you into a world so vividly, you can almost feel the heat rising from the pavement, hear the roar of a motorbike through narrow streets, and sense the ache of a boy growing up too fast. So People Know It’s Me is one of those books.

Set in the underbelly of Naples, this story follows Zeno, a 15-year-old boy who’s already lived a lifetime of survival, loyalty, and quiet longing. After a fatal confrontation with a rival gang member, Zeno finds himself on Nisida, a juvenile prison island that feels both surreal and too real. Through his journal—written in exchange for a Christmas visit home—we see a side of him the world rarely does: honest, raw, and heartbreakingly hopeful.

What struck me most is how Francesca Benvenuto writes with such compassion and clarity. You can tell this story comes from someone who has truly listened to voices like Zeno’s in real life. The blend of Italian and Neapolitan dialect (beautifully translated) gives the novel an immediacy and intimacy that’s hard to shake.

This isn’t a story that offers easy answers, but it’s one that stays with you. Zeno’s voice, his dreams, his contradictions—they feel like someone you knew once, someone you still wonder about.

If you’re looking for a coming-of-age story that’s honest, gritty, and beautifully human, So People Know It’s Me deserves a spot on your TBR.

Zeno is a fifteen year old murderer, serving his sentence in Nisida Juvenile Detention Centre, a prison on an island, surrounded by the sea. Zeno dislikes the sea and his teacher in the prison, Teach, has challenged him to find something beautiful about it. Teach is the recipient of the letters that make up this book. Zeno is hoping to be allowed home for two days at Christmas and Teach has said she'll put in a good word for him in exchange for his story.

Through Zeno, we learn about the other prisoners - all children - as well as the guards and other staff at the prison. For someone who has spent their life fighting a system that has only worked to keep him and his family down, Zeno is a pretty decent narrator. He doesn't shy away from his crimes or the life he is likely to lead when released, but we do see little glimmers of what his life could be if he - and the world - gave him the chance that Teach wishes for him.

I also really enjoyed his friendship with Corradino, a young person who had been judged by everyone else and could so easily have been an easy target in Nisida but is just accepted for who they are. Corradino is not the only character who finds life easier inside Nisida than out, which says a lot about the lives these children have had up until their incarceration.

This wasn't an easy read in terms of the content (nothing too graphic, but desperately sad) but I did enjoy the style, which was almost like it was written in verse.

I won't reveal anything to do with the ending, other than to say it was so far from what I had been expecting but probably shouldn't have been the shock that it was.

Elizabeth Harris has done a superb job in rendering Zeno’s voice in such a compelling way and creates a rhythm to it that at times makes you forget you’re reading prose.
So People Know It’s Me is not the first novel that I’ve read set in Nisidia and its juvenile detention centre, Almarina by Valeria Parrella, which has also been translated to English, is similarly set there but follows the perspective of a maths teacher. Aside from both being very political novels, these two novels are extraordinarily different to one another. Yet, The Teach that is addressed in So People Know It’s Me could be a colleague of the maths teacher in Almarina and so the two novels still feel in conversation with one another. Personally, I preferred the compulsive read So People Know It’s Me and found it a more well-crafted and tighter, more unified in achieving its objectives, novel. That this is Benvenuto's debut makes this even more impressive, to me it was a near perfect novel!

I’m not sure how this would be for someone without Italian as a lot of the words from Napolitano are left untranslated, I don’t think many of these would be decipherable (their nuances at least) from context alone for a reader without Italian. These are also the terms which are italicised in contrast to some words left untranslated from Italian such as “Babbo Natale”, I found that decision quite problematic as it has the effect of othering the regional language. As an Italian translator myself, I suspect these were probably editorial decisions.
Also, I have no idea why So People Know It’s Me is marketed as being for fans of Ferrante. Not only is it extremely different in the perspective that it presents as well as in its voice and its tone, but such a comparison is not only reductive and misleading, it also serves to perpetuate harmful stereotypes of the South by treating all perspectives from it as a monolith. This novel is highly original and deserves to be treated as such!

I wish this book was longer!

We follow Zeno, an inmate as a young offender's in Naples, as he prepares for Christmas leave to visit his family. Zeno had a difficult childhood and had to grow up quickly with his abusive father and his mother, who worked as a sex-worker.

Zeno likes to think he is a gangster and has an image to maintain. But there are so many instances where he is soft, and you see the real him. Such as when he secretly gives his friend extra pizza because he feels sorry for him.

He also has aspirations to be a writer, despite his criminal history. He described stealing kisses from hjs girlfriend as the best things he ever stole (I'm not crying, you are!).

"But most of all, I wish I'd been born a child. But I wasn't ever that lucky - they made me be grown up, right from the start"

For fans of Shuggie Bain and Demon Copperhead

This book was so quick and snappy that i really struggled to put it down. Zeno was such a compelling character to follow and I loved how the family dynamic was created through his diary entries. The pacing was done really well and I liked how the story jumped from his current imprisonment to looking back as to why he got there and his life before he fell into crime. None of the characters felt shallow and i even got a sense of those who didn't speak and just existed by name alone. This was such a strong read and i'd read more by Francesca Benvenuto.

Raw and entirely unapologetic, So People Know It's Me is a fictional short story inspired by real accounts of young adolescents who spent time in the juvenile correctional centre in Nisida, Naples. Zeno narrates his experience in the detention centre through letters encouraged by his teacher; being brutally honest about the trauma for the other teenage boys, the drastic things he had to do outside to keep his mother and him alive, and his hopes for the future that grow in the lead up to a festive day release.

The narrative weaves from Zeno's unstructured story telling, almost blase when talking about violence, to the chaotic inner turmoil of someone who's still a child but sentenced to an adult's punishment. Francesca Benvenuto portrays him as the juvenile he truly is against the hardened criminal he was forced to become, peppering childlike imagination and hopes throughout distressing adult themes.

So People Know It's Me is an authentic look into an imprisoned teenager's life, calling into question whether we truly have choices in life to do the right thing or if survival overrides our moral compass no matter what.

The voice sings off the page and works really well. This takes the form of letters from a boy in juvenile prison to his teacher as Christmas approaches. Very short but packs a punch.