Defining the book as a bildungsroman would be excessive, absolutely irreverent towards Salinger, despite an infinitesimal, intentional, reference to Holden. However, it is true that it wants to be, in its small, very small intent, a novel of growth. A growth that sees a group of young people confront on the one hand with the approach of the final exams, on the other with a collective commitment and on yet another one with a situation greater than them, violent and brutal. The commitment that involves them is basically a small thing, a play, but it is enriched with an organizational and design context that motivates and excites them. It helps to unite them, to cement existing bonds and to create new ones. The violent story arises from a simple stunt, which however unleashes mechanisms of revenge, evil instincts and deplorable actions. Football cheering is the excuse for such feats.
And around these three lines of development are intertwined the stories of individual young people, stories of ingenuity, love, sympathy, friendship, affection and solidarity. Positive stories in fact, deliberately such, innocent perhaps. But these are precisely stories of growth, of maturation, which the acceleration of events eventually makes even dramatic.
The setting is that of the late eighties, to place a detachment from the present time, but feelings and passions are of all times. Like the steps of life.