Born into a family with an omnipresent mother who is devoted to her own anxiety, a father ruled by hygienic and architectural obsessions, and a precocious genius brother at the centre of their attention, Vero languishes in boredom. After a childhood spent peering through the tiny windows of their cramped Rome apartment at the carefree children playing on the streets outside, her teenage years are filled with attempts at escape - but she is no match for her mother's relentless tracking methods and guilt-tripping mastery, and her every venture outside their Rome apartment ends in her being returned home.

It's no wonder then that Vero becomes a writer - and a liar - inventing stories in a bid for her own sanity.

In deliciously wry and crafted prose, Lost on Me recounts Vero's transition from eccentric childhood to dysfunctional adulthood. Detailing her failed attempts at emancipation, her discovery of sex, her romantic obsessions, her struggles with constipation and - ultimately - her contentious relationship with reality, this is a profoundly original and relentlessly entertaining novel about experience, connection and selfhood.