Caterina in the Big City

I've always been curious about what it's like growing up in places other than where I grew up. In the 4th grade I had pen pals from French Canada, a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and sunny California, among others, and I was always pretty fascinated by how different their lives were, and also how similar.

Caterina in the Big City is set in Italy and is about a small-town girl who moves with her family to Rome. I'm not sure where I heard of it, but I rented it through Netflix and I really loved it. Caterina is suddenly thrown into a school that's very politically divided and her father has his own issues with their socioeconomic situations. It's weird to see kids that are so passionate about politics but in a lot of ways this is a classic new-girl-at-school story.

Caterina is the sweet, impressionable girl that both factions want to adopt in their cliques, and not knowing any better, she goes along with it. First she falls in with the moody, somewhat Goth Marguerita, who is the daughter of a famous leftist writer, but after a falling out, soon gets caught up in the glam world of the daughter of a right-wing politician. It's a really fun ride, and Caterina is surprising easy to relate to, even if she is Italian and living in a completely different world.