In a spectacular display of bad judgement Leo then buries Oscar's body in the sand to hide the death.

The short novel unfolds like an adolescent version of Camus’ The Stranger, as Leo spends pages considering the senselessness of what happened and feeling the weight of life’s ennui. Der eigentliche Clou ist ohnehin das Hintergrundrauschen in den Ohren: Léo hat eine Schuld auf sich geladen, oder zumindest eine Dummheit gemacht.It is really short - not even 200 pages - but a fantastic one, really eerie and tense, as we follow Leonard, a teenager who witnessed someone die and made an incredibly stupid decision he can't go back on. If so, could Leo be an unreliable narrator and, like in Camus’ novel, the death that occurs is a murder - did Leo actually murder Oscar, because he was jealous of his being with Luce, the girl he fancies, and Leo distanced himself from the crime like he distances himself from everything else in his life, pretending the swings killed him instead?

Oscar sembra averci ripensato, forse vorrebbe liberarsi dalle corde, ma Léonard non lo aiuta, lo lascia morire. Léonard is 17 en brengt met zijn ouders, jongere broer en zus de laatste vakantiedagen op de camping door.But the lineage is there, in the language, in the staccato sentences, and most of all in the fatalism, the sense that we have no control and this is simply the way it had to be.