The more I find out about Melissa Panarello , the more I want to hate her. First of all, this bitch is younger than me, and has not one, not two, but three published books. That alone is enough for her to win a place on my hit list. (I know it’s a negative personality trait to have, but I can’t help it; I’m the jealous type.) Published under the alias Melissa P whilst the Sicilian schoolgirl was only seventeen, Melissa’s debut autobiographical novel, One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed caused criticism and controversy in all forty countries in which it was released.

In diary format, it chronicles the narrator’s extreme sexual experiences in gratuitous detail, and was inevitably lambasted by the media as evidence of the moral decline of the younger generation. The text is deliberately provocative in its candour, and although in interviews Melissa has dismissed claims that the writing and publication of One Hundred Strokes was a brave move, it’s hard to believe that she did not anticipate to some extent the controversy it would cause.

To some extent, it seems pure self-indulgence; whilst I may not have ever used a vinyl dildo to fuck a married man’s arse, I’m sure most of us have some scandalous and/or regrettable anecdote about our sexual awakenings, even if they are somewhat less extreme than Melissa’s. It’s not exactly a newsflash that adolescent lust can lead to reckless and irresponsible behaviour. So the self-importance with which Melissa relates her experiences seems a tad arrogant and narcissistic.

In fact, it would be easy to dismiss One Hundred Strokes as a clumsy masturbation aid, if it weren’t for the infuriating fact that Melissa P is an irritatingly talented author. The disparity between her child-like fragility and naïveté and the sophisticated language she uses, along with the unsettling combination of anonymity and intimacy, is seductive but disturbing.

The Scent of Your Breath, her second book to be published in translation, is very different in content to One Hundred Strokes, although the linguistic style and melancholic tone remains the same. Written as a confessional letter to her mother, it’s a dark and insular examination of anxiety and jealous, with recurring hallucinations of ghosts and insects. And much as I wanted to dislike it, I have to come clean; it’s beautifully written. Whilst it may make you sick to do so, swallow your cynicism and envy about her. I did, with difficulty, so it can be done. It might make you jealous, but you won’t regret it.