Laura Wagner: Tutto Bene – Buchpremiere

A fast-paced debut novel about love, friendship, and the courage to break free from old patterns.

Emma is struggling: with her body, her past, and life itself. Mars, Snickers, Happy Cherries—when Emma restocks the late-night store shelves, she sees only one thing: calories. She dropped out of college, just as she cut off contact with her father, who’s probably sleeping off his last binge on a park bench somewhere. And Emma, too, can barely get through an evening without Müller-Thurgau; the glass under the counter helps her forget.

Everything’s tutto bene, right? Not really.

But then suddenly there’s Ingrid: fifteen, cheeky as can be, and the new student intern at the late-night store. It’s not just Udo—who only crawls out from behind his gaming computer for chocolate and energy drinks—who takes an instant liking to the know-it-all teenager. Emma, too, soon lets Ingrid into her heart without a second thought. Without a second thought, because now she really has to face her problems—and they escalate exponentially when she meets the sailor, whose real name is Leo. He wants what she’s been avoiding for years: a relationship, with everything that goes with it.

But Emma doesn’t even dare to get a tattoo—so how is she supposed to commit to something that big? Opening up to someone even just a little bit is hard enough.