The Solitude of Prime Numbers (Italian: La solitudine dei numeri primi) is a 2008 Italian novel by Paolo Giordano.
It narrates the quiet yet long-lasting bond between a boy (Mattia) and a girl (Alice). In different ways, both are social outcasts with mental disorders and a traumatic childhood, who find for the first time a person they can relate to when they meet as teenagers. Their friendship is complicated, but they remain close until adulthood.
It has a movie adaptation, made two years later.
Tropes:
- Adapted Out: Soledad, the maid of Alice's family who has a notable role in the novel's early chapters, doesn't appear in the movie.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Both Mattia and Alice are outsiders who don't fit in with other people. And Mattia doesn't even want to.
- Alpha Bitch: Alice's rich and popular classmate Viola, who bullies people along with her Girl Posse. The group is also known as "The Four Bitches".
- Broken Bird: The two main characters. And they both have deep, tragic reason for being so broken.
- Coming of Age Story: Deconstructed. Both Alice and Mattia mature from teenagers to adults (Mattia becomes a successful professor, stops cutting himself, and loses his virginity, Alice pursues a passion for photography and marries a doctor) but neither is happy with their lives, because the impact of their traumatic past is still present, and they are still broken inside.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- As a child, Alice has a ski accident which leaves her crippled.
- As a child, Mattia leaves his disabled sister Michela alone in a park to attend a party without her. A few hours later, his sister has disappeared, and she's never found again.
- Demoted to Extra: Mattia's friend Denis and Alice's husband Fabio are fleshed out characters in the novel. They barely appear in the movie.
- Downer Ending: With the main characters going separate ways. There's slightly more hope for them in the movie, which leaves the ending ambiguous.
- Fat Best Friend: Mattia's Only Friend Denis in the movie. He's never described as fat in the novel.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Alice, especially as a teenager. Subverted with Mattia who basically rejects any contact with other people. However, Mattia played this trope straight as a child, before his sister's disappearance.
- Only Friend: Denis is this to Mattia, before the latter meets Alice, although they were never really that close. They just spend their time together at school, with Mattia rarely talking and Denis being secretly attracted to him.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Mattia and Alice's bond is never romantic. It's implied they love each other, but their issues prevent them to be together.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Mattia is a Child Prodigy, Michela has an intellectual disability.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Despite her issues, Alice tries to show her emotions and personality, especially around Mattia. Mattia always remains stoic and emotionless.
- Self-Harm: Mattia cuts himself during his teenage years, but eventually grows out of it as an adult.
- Token Good Teammate: Giulia is the nicest of Viola's Girl Posse.
